


Between Worlds

by velvel



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Non-Consensual, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-01-06 01:54:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12201561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvel/pseuds/velvel
Summary: In the highly stratified society of the space ship Bellerophon, Chief Engineer Uli Kajosk has spent his whole life hiding as a beta in order to get to the top, a position that's threatened when his heat suppressants unexpectedly quit working. Shit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy, ok, so
> 
> \- heed the warnings please etc  
> \- this is scifi i guess and the main character is supposed to be technically proficient but as will become painfully obvious i know jack shit about engineering. i'm sorry. there's porn?  
> \- bc i honestly can't wrap my head around ass babies, male omegas in this verse have bodies more like true  
> hermaphroditism, or like transmen's bodies after a while on t  
> \- this is silly to point out since ultimately it doesn't matter, but pronounce the js as ys on the lower deck, so its oolee kahyohsk. (jepseth = yepset, so on)
> 
> enjoy oh my god im sorry

It was approximately 1450 - according to their absolutely bullshit and arbitrary system of telling time - when a young ensign poked her head around the corner and interrupted Uli Kajosk's alone time. It wasn't often Uli had any time off and it was even rarer, aboard The Bellerophon, to enjoy that time alone. Privacy had become nigh-mythological among the Lower Decks, so when Uli wanted time to himself, he put on headphones and curled up between the loud humming columns of the engine room.

Noise-canceling headphones were issued only to the engineering crew and the deafening hum of the Sulamit-crystal engines deterred even those with access codes to the cavernous engine room from casually hanging out there. Headphones couldn't drown out all of the hum and most of Uli's crew complained that too long among the columns made them dizzy and nauseous. Uli had even met particularly sensitive citizens in the Upper Decks, where the hum was barely audible, who claimed it made them woozy from time to time. 

Uli could excuse his mechanics, to some extent. Sensitive Upper Deck aristocrats got zero sympathy.

Uli liked the hum - to the point of addiction. He had no problem spending his free time near to it and, in fact, preferred it that way.

He liked the way the hum made his whole body vibrate, so that every part of him felt loose and separate, as if on the precipice of a sort of bodily resonance disaster. Uli knew the engineering crew joked that Chief Kajosk couldn't come unless he fucked near the hum, and he'd be angrier with them if it weren't somewhat true. As a teenager, in the throes of his first and only heat, Uli had sealed himself away behind a panel in the buffer wall, the wall between the engine room and other, more habitable parts of the Lower Decks. After learning what he was in a sex education pamphlet as a child, Uli had spent years covertly removing the panel, opening it up, carving out and disposing of the absorbent foam that filled the wall, forming a space big enough for one tiny 15-year-old to hide.

When that first monstrous heat finally hit, Uli hid inside the buffer wall, the wall that protected the people of The Bellerophon from its engine's nauseating hum. 

He hid _in_ the hum.

If it made them sick, then it kept him safe. And Uli spent all three days of his first heat pumping his small, thumb-sized cock to the suddenly frantic rhythm of the hum, shoving as many fingers in him as he could, as deep as he could, trying to reach, to stroke, that sunken spot where the hum seemed to thrum ecstatically inside him. Ever since then, Uli had pursued the hum with a lovesick obsession, pouring over every engineering textbook and technical manual he could get his hands on. 

Having discovered more sophisticated ways to mask his sexual dynamic, Uli posed as a Beta and graduated top of his class at the Officer's Academy, Engineering Track. No one knew the inner workings of The Bellerophon like Uli Kajosk. No one loved The Bellerophon like Uli Kajosk, who - to his horror, and fascination - occasionally felt slick trickle down his inner thighs while performing routine engine repairs. 

And unlike the others, the further Uli moved from the hum, the sicker he felt. Shortly after being promoted to Chief Engineer and moving into his quarters on the Upper Decks, Uli fell deathly ill. The Chief Medical Officer fretted over a diagnosis for days - fighting with Uli on the necessity of this or that invasive test - until Zev Lemosk, Uli's primary care physician for a decade, finally managed to pass a message through to the Upper Decks identifying Uli's symptoms as withdrawal. 

A return to the engine room - to the source of The Bellerophon's hum - and Uli was his bright, healthy self in no time. Besides, delegating tasks instead of personally doing them, or at least closely supervising them being done, had made Uli paranoid and bitchier than usual. 

The coms on Uli's headset crackled to life.

"Chief Kajosk," the ensign said. She was clearly mustering the courage to speak. "Dr. Lemosk has left, uh, several messages asking your location and requesting that you respond immediately."

Uli leveled a black glare at the poor ensign, but knew better than to shoot the messenger. Lemosk outranked her - ensigns were still only Academy students - and although she had the accent of an Upper, Uli could safely assume that Zev chewed her head off to convince her to come bother him. Uli slid the mic down on his headset. 

"Tell Lemosk to piss off," he said, looking back down at the physics paper he'd pulled up on his tablet screen.

In the corner of his eye, the ensign shifted her weight uncomfortably. 

"That is all."

"Yes, Chief." 

She turned to leave.

"Ensign," he said. She pivoted back into attention, a formality she'd grow out of soon after graduating. Uli didn't like parade performances in his engine room. He let her settle down first, then said, slowly and with venom, "Don't interrupt me again."

"Yes, Chief."

"Dismissed."

Uli returned to the physics paper, a publication on Sulamit energy by some Upper civilian theoretician that Uli intended to tear apart for no other reason than he could. His idea of fun.

He knew there must be at least one hundred messages from Lemosk waiting for him to reactive coms on his tablet. Zev Lemosk was the only other Lower Deck scientist of note in The Bellerophon. He and Uli came from the same neighborhood, per se: not only were they both Lowmen, but they were both registered Zeks, members of the mostly-despised, mostly-Lower-Deck Zekhish minority. When Uli moved back down to the Lower Decks for his health, the Uppers who had lived beside him undoubtedly breathed a sigh of relief for their status. A Zek living on the same corridor? It didn't look good.

A few other Zeks lived on the Upper Decks but they usually went out their way to shed anything that identified them as such, from the -osk at the end of their surname to their individual Ukht - the stone given at birth to every Zek which, according to one of their many religious texts, connected the soul of each Zek to their past, present and future people; and to the homeworld they'd eventually inhabit. 

The physical or metaphysical whereabouts of said homeworld differed drastically depending on which commentator you put your trust in. Uli considered it bullshit on the whole, but still, he'd pull his own toenails out with his teeth before he took off his stone to appease a bunch of anxious Uppers. 

Since Zeks never removed their necklaces and considered it an act of intimacy to display one's stone, they typically avoided The Bellerophon's communal showers. Occasionally Uli received anonymous messages calling him a dirty Zek, accusing him of intentionally sabotaging The Bellerophon's engines. The first stereotype at least gave him an excuse not to bathe in the company of others on a daily basis. The second was merely insulting. Still, hate mail was better than getting the shit beaten out of him, a frequent occurrence at the Officer's Academy. 

As a cadet, Uli had lived in constant fear that the violence would become rape, and worse, his cover blown: but somehow he'd managed to curl up or fight back viciously in a balance that prevented his tormentors from escalating too far. In a way, he still lived that balance: as the most prominent Zek in The Bellerophon, he could neither be too Zek, nor, really, too suspiciously normal. Otherwise they might think he was trying to join their society, not serve it. 

Uli put a hand to his chest, where the weight of his stone hung on a necklace under his engineering coveralls. If they ever took his life away from him, he didn't know what he would do. 

In the end, he had Zev to thank for his life.

Zev Lemosk was as brilliant as Uli, and the best man Uli knew - but he was too Zek to advance much higher than Chief Medical Officer of the Lower Decks. He did everything wrong. He wore the stone, and said prayers every morning and night. He refused to work on the Day of Rest. His wife wrapped her hair, and his two children spoke better Zekhish than Common. Worst of all, Zev possessed a rare, iron-willed integrity. He was the only one on The Bellerophon who knew what Uli was, and although he lectured Uli from time to time on the duty-of-the-omega-to-the-people, he respected Uli's decisions enough to provide him with under the counter heat suppressants and birth control. 

These things weren't illegal, exactly, but they were impossible to obtain without massive amounts of paperwork and, ultimately, registration as an omega. Zev had conducted all of Uli's military physicals, and it was Zev who signed off on the lie that Uli was a healthy beta male. A little shorter than average, but all Zeks were short. To say that Zev was risking his career for Uli was an understatement. Why? As far as Uli knew, Zev took issue with the fate that faced Uli as an unbonded omega among the Zeks. 

Most Zek parents - whose children were often illegal to begin with - strove desperately to conceal the dynamic of their omega offspring. It was universally understood that young, unbonded omegas from Zek families would always disappear. They would leave the family room for two seconds, and never return. No one knew exactly what happened to them, but sex slavery seemed a good guess. Uli assumed he wasn't the only Zekhish omega Zev was helping to hide, but he was certainly the most dangerous. The most likely to become a catastrophe. 

It was Uli's day off - a welcome scheduling error - and, officially, he had an appointment with Dr. Lemosk. But, for once, the appointment had nothing to do with his genitals and therefore Uli felt completely confident blowing it the fuck off. Zev's other reason for protecting Uli, the omega, was his desire to poke and prod Uli, the engineer. Zev was convinced that The Bellerophon's hum had long-term physical effects on the people of the Lower Decks, and Uli's ability - in fact, desire - to absorb the hum was a point of interest to Dr. Lemosk. Was Uli immune? 

Or was he even sicker than them all?

Uli found he had a hard time giving a shit. If the hum was killing him, he couldn't feel it, and it was worth it besides. What felt like death to Uli wasn't the hum, but heats and the exhaustion that came after heats. Death was being reduced to a reproductive machine. 

Life on The Bellerophon hadn't always been this way - or, at least, Uli supposed. Uli had used his heightened security clearance to access old archived books that led him to believe so. The original travelers hadn't been perfect, by any means. After all, they'd been fucking stupid enough to believe a space station was a sustainable multi-generational settlement. But as far as Uli could tell, they'd considered omegas equal participants in their insane utopian project. Everyone had been, theoretically, equal.

How nice.

Limited space and limited resources led to increased control of sexual reproduction, which led, naturally, to increased control of omegas, who had no capacity of controlling themselves - at least according to any alpha with rank or a working cock, so really any alpha at all. According to his identification papers, Uli was an imperfect beta male, and unauthorized to reproduce. Fine by him. If he wanted to have sex, he had to register for the opportunity, which he had never bothered to do. The military psychologists considered this strange, but not out of character. Uli didn't exactly have friends, and someone else needed to register to have sex with you, too, for it actually take place. 

Uli loved Zev, in his own way, but the alpha doctor was both happily married and 20 years older than Uli. And as much as Uli enjoyed having pints of his blood drawn and analyzed, it didn't exactly turn him on. Uli had enough birth control and heat suppressants for several months yet, and he was willing to risk Zev's anger for an afternoon all to himself.

Uli closed his eyes and cracked his neck. The headphones could get heavy after a while, which usually didn't bother him much, but he felt stiff that day, as if he'd slept wrong. Opening his eyes again, Uli searched for the paragraph he'd left off on, and became of someone standing in his peripheral vision, waiting for his attention. Uli was utterly determined not to engage. Only when his coms began to crackle again did he finally look up.

"Oh, go fuck your mother," he said.

Sein Abbot, Chief of Security, was staring down at him. 

Uli knew Abbot hadn't been waiting patiently for anything. He'd been observing Uli the entire time. Sein Abbot was tall and thin and perpetually pretending to be slow. He had a Middle accent, but put extraordinary effort into using words in an Upper way - a level of consideration that made his speech deliberate and droning, like a boring professor. Which he was. Abbot had apparently been some kind of expert in old world literature before becoming the man who goes through everyone's mail. 

He made Uli's stomach turn with dread. 

"I once read an article that described Lower Deck 'mother-cursing' as a kind of verbal art," Abbot said. "I'm afraid I don't see it, though perhaps your peers are more impressive."

Uli stood up and slid his tablet into his pocket. He fought the urge to immediately put more space between himself and the strange alpha by stepping back. 

"Fascinating," Uli said, in a mock Upper accent, and then, "Do you happen to have a point?"

"Indeed," Abbot said, but not in response to Uli's question; he was still finishing his first thought, and forged ahead as if Uli's words were worthless, "I find it especially interesting coming from Zeks, whose own language is so excessively respectful of its elders."

"That so?"

"Is not honoring mothers a central tenet of your people's cultural texts?"

"I wouldn't know," Uli said, exasperated. 

"No," Abbot said, "I suppose not."

Uli rolled his eyes. Abbot returned to staring at him. The hum punctuated their silence. Abbot looked strange in engineering headphones. Their bright orange contrasted sharply with his unremarkable brown suit. Abbot had all the resources of the Upper Decks fashion available to him and still chose to dress like a dour clerk. He was trying to appear unaffected - the brown suit, the slowness, it was all about appearing unaffected - but Uli could tell from the white knuckled way Abbot clutched his cane that the hum made him uncomfortable. 

Uli hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and sneered. "What do you want, Abbot?"

"You have an appointment with Dr. Lemosk."

"Yes," Uli said, snapping in an attempt to disguise his fear.

"Whatever for?"

Uli glanced at Abbot's cane. Sein Abbot had a club foot which, for whatever reason, had gone untreated as a child, and so the Security Chief walked with a severe limp. Surely if Abbot was here to arrest him, Uli thought, he'd have brought some muscle. Alright, so he was showing off: letting Uli knew that nothing was secret on The Bellerophon from the man with all the access codes. Uli didn't appreciate being played with. Instinctively, he growled, surprising both Abbot and himself. 

Growling was a threat response common to alphas and omegas but which betas only very rarely felt compelled to use. It sounded strangely over the coms. Abbot's sleepy eyes widened in genuine surprise, and as soon as Uli realized he was doing it, he stopped. He looked at the floor in embarrassment, then remembered that too was a classic submissive pose, and so he forced himself to make eye contact with Abbot again.

Abbot was clearly intrigued.

"Are you well, Chief Kajosk?" he asked.

What the fuck, Uli thought. He hadn't growled since he was fifteen and a feral teenager in Zev Lemosk's kitchen.

"I doubt Dr. Lemosk sent you to escort me, personally, to my missed appointment," Uli said, "So quit stroking your limp dick please and tell me why you're here."

"The imagery of your insults today, motherhood and the phallus--"

Uli threw his hands up in frustration. "I swear, Abbot, I will drag you to a steam vent and I will melt off your fucking face."

"You are an ill bred creature," Abbot said, turning, "And the Premier desires to speak with you."

 

As soon as he stepped off the lift and onto the Upper Deck, the withdrawal symptoms started. They were almost welcome, since dealing with the pain distracted him from having to make small talk with Abbot, who, for his part, seemed delighted to say nothing and quietly examine Uli's weakness. Uli shivered, though he was hot, and unthinkingly he unzipped the front of his coveralls far enough to feel cool air on his chest without also displaying his stone.

Uli always got a lot of stares when he made his way through the Upper: his black hair was shaved on the sides, leaving only a slightly longer strip down the center of his head - a hairstyle the Uppers only saw in news reports about crime in the Lower. With his engineering coveralls and Zekhish features, they looked at him as if he were a septic technician. Normally Uli enjoyed upsetting them, but at the moment he hardly noticed, only occasionally glancing up to make dizzy eye contact with one or two particularly penetrating glares.

As they made their way through the wide corridors of the Upper, people parted deliberately to let them pass. Even when he wore full dress uniform, Uli had never passed through an Upper corridor without being questioned or harassed, and he realized that the people were moving out of Abbot's way, as if frightened of coming into physical contact with him. A few touched their foreheads in respectful greeting, but they did so wordlessly.

As short as he was, and sick with withdrawal, Uli had little difficulty keeping pace with Abbot.

"We make quite a pair up here, don't we," Abbot said.

A joke?

Uli blinked, and laughed.

A pain in his abdomen turned Uli's dry laugh into a shameful whimper, and he bit his lip furiously. "I feel sick," he said. "I hate it here."

"I know," Abbot said, with surprising sympathy. "When we get to Premier Mede's office, I will request pain medications. Come."

At the entrance to the Premier's quarters, a soldier asked for Uli's identification.

"For heaven's sake," Abbot said, shoving the woman aside with his cane. "He's the man that keeps this entire station afloat. Now excuse us, if you please."

"Yes, Dr. Abbot," the soldier said, bemused. She pressed a button and the door buzzed, then hissed open. Uli had been inside the Premier's quarters before, but the sensation of standing on plush carpet always shocked him; and the clean, well lighted whiteness of it all made him feel dirty, as if the stereotypes were true. They passed a secretary's desk, turned a corner off the main hallway and entered Mede's office.

"Have a seat," Abbot said.

Uli's entire body was restless. He ached, but in a way that demanded movement. It felt as if the pain would go away if only he ran or exerted himself somehow into exhaustion. 

"I'll stand," he said.

At some point, two pain pills and a glass of water were pressed into Uli's hands by a secretary, and he downed them gratefully. After maybe ten minutes, the shivering that the restlessness abated somewhat, and Uli felt a little more focused. Still, he didn't sit. The Premier's office was unexpectedly small, intimate even, and furnished with only a desk and two chairs. But the furnishing were artifacts, the sort thing Uli thought existed only in books before he gained access to the Upper. Wood, real sumptuously carved wood: Uli ran his hand over the pattern of some old world plant carved into the desk. He touched it as if caressing a lover.

"Beautiful, is it not?" Premier Mede said. "Wheat."

Uli retracted his hand like a child caught playing with something fragile or sharp.

Abbot stood to salute the Premier in the civilian fashion, touching his hand to his forehead. Uli, collecting himself, executed a sharp military salute, pressing his right fist to his left shoulder. Mede entered the room, followed by a young man in expensive but casual clothing, and an active duty pilot's distinctive boots. 

"At ease," Mede said. Abbot sat, and Uli slunk back a few steps. 

Uli hated being in the same room as Premier Mede. It wasn't so much that he disliked Mede - he did, but no more so than Uli disliked just about everyone. In fact, it was because being beside Mede made every muted omega hormone in Uli's treacherous body cry out in the desperate need to like Mede. To like Mede, say, onl his knees, with his mouth around Mede's cock. Hanno Mede was not only the most powerful man in the Bellerophon, he was also the most fucking alpha piece of shit Uli had ever encountered. He was huge, with arms bigger than Uli's ego, and when he smiled, he even had sharp canines, a vestigial trait that no longer occurred on most alphas. When Uli stood near Mede, he was conscious every moment of being near an alpha, to the extent that his chemically weakened sense of smell still picked up on the alpha's scent. 

And although he was a physically imperfect beta, Uli knew - on some level - that he was an attractive omega. Little, but sturdy. Strong enough to do the physically demanding word of maintaining The Bellerophon's engines. He was archtypically omega, and it was part of the reason he cut his hair unattractively and acted so sullen. He was always scared that Hanno Mede, alpha monstrosity that he was, could smell his secret, even through all the scent blocking spray. 

Maybe he could, subtly, because Mede had always been oddly indulgent of Uli, for a Lower Deck Zek. 

"Uli, this is Captain Virdin Rudiger," Mede said. "Rudi, meet little Uli Kajosk."

Uli frowned.

"Engineering commander Kajosk, Chief of The Bellerophon," Uli said, piqued. "But okay."

Mede looked taken aback, and then dangerous. He turned to face Uli fully and bared his teeth. Uli felt a pain in his abdomen again and immediately cast his eyes downward. This soothed Mede, who chuckled and patted Uli on the cheek, as if he were a child. When Uli looked up again, Rudiger was grinning at him from behind Mede's back, and he noticed that the young man also had vestigial canines. A relation of Medes? 

Distantly, Uli wondered how that sharpness would feel against his throat, and he was shaken from this revere by the realization that he was alone in a small room with three alphas. 

Abbot was looking between Uli and Rudiger curiously.

"Shall we begin?" Abbot said, carefully, and it broke the tenseness that Uli felt in his chest, the sudden terrified excitement.

Mede sat heavily behind his desk, leaving Uli and Rudiger standing on opposite sides of the room. Rudiger leaned against the wall casually, and Uli rocked back and forth, unsure what to do with himself - unsure why he was there. Premier Mede ruled The Bellerophon, having inherited the title from his father, who in turn inherited it from his father - who had, supposedly, been elected into office. Mede's grandfather had declared himself commander of the military and dictator in perpetuity after the first time the Rhogahm attacked. There was a civilian council under Mede, but it hadn't had power in decades, if ever: Uli's understanding of The Bellerophon's history was vague, largely because the official line was vague. What Uli gleaned of life before, he constructed between the lines of old science texts: for example, the odd line in a biology book about omega physiology no longer being an impediment to their civil equality. 

Their official history was profoundly, even stupidly simple: The Bellerophon had left when its home planet on a utopian mission to find and settle new worlds. Somewhere along the way, it had been attacked by the Rhogahm, in a battle that damaged The Bellerophon's warp drive, effectively stranding them in space. The Rhogahm wanted their Sulamit power, and therefore the Bellerophon was still and would always be in danger. It was only the military genius of the Mede family that kept them all safe. Uli was unsure how much of it he believed. He avoided Mede and delivered most of his reports via coms, but in the amount of time Uli had spent in Mede's presence, genius wasn't exactly his takeaway. Bright, maybe. But mostly the Premier struck Uli as an angry man. 

Ultimately, Uli was content not to question too deeply, so long as he could be near his engines, and this involved staying undiscovered. Both endeavors ate up any time he had to uncover the truth. Assuming the truth still existed. 

"We are developing a Sulamit powered fighter," Mede said.

Uli's mouth went dry.

"That's not possible," he said.

"Why so?" Rudiger asked. He sounded amused.

"I drafted a design in my second year at the Academy but it was a piece of fiction - a fantasy. The engine would be too big, or you'd have to cut the Sulamit crystal to a small enough proportion and we simply can't. Excuse me, who," Uli drew in a deep breath. " _Who_ has developed this craft? Don't tell me Dr. Ailpean, because I've read her recent paper and it's absolute--"

"You," Abbot said.

Uli shut up. All three alphas were watching him, and his stomach hurt so bad, he felt as if he were having a panic attack. What? He took another deep breath, and caught a taste of Mede's scent - or was it Rudiger? He shook his head. "I don't--"

"We took your designs and adapted them to a Cork 2 Starfighter," Rudiger said.

"We don't have the technology to cut a Sulamit."

"We do," Abbot said, "Now."

Uli flushed hot with anger.

"This is fucking absurd. No. If we knew, I would know. Should know." Uli shook. "No one informed me that this was taking place, and I deserve--"

"Deserve?" Mede growled, and Uli inhaled a gentle shaky breath at the fullness of the sound. He curled in on himself, crossing his arms and, for the third time that day, looked down. He felt his stone press against his chest, felt the roughness of its surface against his skin acutely. "Chief Kajosk, I respect your expertise. And I occasionally even enjoy your _spirit_. But this Zekhish attitude is less entertaining when it leads you to forget your place. Do you understand?"

Uli's throat constricted, as if he too were about to growl in response - to challenge Hanno Mede - but he caught it this time, and swallowed thickly. When he looked up, still red faced and furious, he caught Rudiger's eyes and, holding them impudently, nodded for Mede. Rudiger's eyes were beaming, and he smiled, as if he understood some sort of joke that no one else in the room quite got.

"And?" Uli whispered.

Mede allowed this.

"It works," Mede said, "Congratulations."

Uli hummed his bemused assent.

Rudiger stretched his back as if he were at the intermission of some game. "Unfortunately, it only works _sometimes_."

"Rudi is our test pilot," Mede said.

"It's a bit of a bother for me when the plane quits mid-flight."

"I'm sure," Uli said.

Abbot rested both hands on the handle of his cane. "We're bringing you in to take a look at it."

There was an implied threat in those gentle, sleepy words. Uli's palms were sweaty, and his heart beat staccato. The last Chief Engineer had been dismissed for disappointing Mede, probably on this very project. Is that why they'd promoted him, despite his low status? If it was his design, why hadn't they said anything? Or did they distrust him so much? He wasn't sure why he felt so much fear. It couldn't have been just the withdrawal symptoms. What if he fucked up? What if they took everything away? But that was ridiculous.  
Without Uli, there wouldn't be a plane at all. They needed him.

Mede was already pulling up other work on his tablet. "Rudiger will show you to the hangar where the plane is docked," Mede said, dismissing Uli. Uli saluted again, but Mede's attention was elsewhere, "Abbot, update me on the unfolding situation."

"Yes, sir," Abbot said, adding no more before Uli had left the room, and Uli sensed him watching until the door was closed. 

Uli followed Rudiger, unthinkingly falling a half-step behind him. He was beyond paying attention to the corridors of the Upper Deck, and kept his attention glued to the pilot's back. Rudiger was almost as tall as Mede, with an easy foot on Uli. But he wasn't nearly as big. He was lean. He moved in a way that suggested athleticism, and the wealthy leisure necessary to build that sort of musculature: he clearly had access to wide open spaces, to the wasted rooms where rich brats played field sports. 

They entered a lift and Rudiger punched in an access code. Uli tried not to stare at Rudiger but with no where else to go, his eyes wandered up. Rudiger had short red hair and light brown eyes, and he was immensely handsome in the way Uli thought of as unZekhish: statuesque. Rudiger was looking forward but smirking - did he always smile like a bitch? - as if he knew Uli was studying him, and a little too closely, at that. Uli took a step forward so he was no longer tempted to stare.

"You a relation to Mede?" Uli asked. He tapped his foot, trying to ease that full body ache.

"Nephew," Rudiger said.

Uli hummed. Rudiger was young: had to be 24 maybe, about a decade Uli's junior. Not unusual for a pilot, he supposed. But it had taken Uli until he was 29 to reach Captain, and the only reason they promoted him at all was because he forced their hand with publications. When a Lieutenant 3rd class was continually coming out with the best material, after a while it got embarrassing. 

"You're purring," Rudiger said.

Uli startled. He looked back at Rudiger, who was smiling, then turned around again and stared with determination at the lift's steel gray doors. "Humming," Uli said. "I'm humming. I do it to think - which you're not helping. And quit smiling so much. It makes you look like a tit."

Rudiger laughed.

For a second, Uli though maybe he should leave and come back later. But that wasn't really an option, was it? And then the lift opened at a small hangar, where two Cork 2 Starfighters were docked, alone. It was odd being in a hangar not bustling with noise, with industry and the laughter and cursing of Lower Deck mechanics, and Uli had the sensation of entering a temple, of the type his ancestors must have had on the home world: temples lit with a light that never went out, according to the old texts. And in this hangar Uli could feel that light, little but melodious. He began to feel better, though not normal. Still warm, but no longer unbearably so.

"It's the one on the right," Rudiger said.

"I know," Uli said, entranced.

Reverently, he walked across the hangar floor and touched the nose of the fighter. The whole plane hummed like a miniature of The Bellerophon's engines, and his fingers tingled with the touch, as if they'd gone numb.

There was a hatch under the control panel that would let him into the engine: there he would find the crystal. He had to get into that cockpit. 

"Need a boost?" Rudiger said.

"Eat shit."

Uli gripped a handrail and pulled himself onto the wing, schooling his face to conceal the amount of effort it took. Behind him, Rudiger swung up with practiced ease. Uli wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead and then dried his hands on the thigh of his coveralls. The touch of his hands against his thighs was oddly sensitive. Rudiger reached around him to key in the code that opened the cockpit, and Uli tensed all over when, briefly, Rudiger's chest rested flush against his back. 

"Do you mind?" Uli snapped.

"Be my guest," Rudiger said, stepping back and allowing Uli a bit of space.

Uli leaned over the bulwark to look into the cockpit, his lower body pressed against the plane, which was vibrating subtly with the crystal's lovely hum. It was calling to him, and he reached in, ready to pull himself toward it, to come closer to its hypnotic song, when suddenly he cried out, and folded over the bulwark with an overwhelming ache that wasn't an ache but an incessant throbbing, and that was pain but also burning need. 

He felt a wetness between his legs, and he groaned in horror. 

Run, he thought. Hide. 

Before he could move, hands were on him: Rudiger wrapped an arm around his waist, and pressed his body crushingly against Uli's, so that between Rudiger and the plane, Uli was trapped. With his free hand, Rudiger grabbed Uli's throat and pulled him back, so that he could cram his face into the crook of Uli's neck and scent deeply. He breathed, didn't quite find what he was looking for, and dragged his tongue over the side of Uli's throat to get a good taste of the engineer's skin. He exhaled triumphantly. The tickle of Rudiger's breath against his ear caused Uli to shiver and Rudiger pressed, if possible, closer.

"I thought so," he said. "I knew it. I knew there was something off about you. About the way my uncle acted around you - Abbot even. You're a cunt." 

Uli clawed at the hand around his throat, standing on the tips of his toes and wheezing for air. Rudiger held fast. And with every little breath Uli gained, he could smell Rudiger, and he smelled so _good_. Uli could feel his slick trickle down his thigh, and maybe if he spread his legs, the alpha would touch him there. No. He scrambled for logical thought. He still outranked Rudiger. 

"Let me go, Captain," Uli hissed. "That's an order."

Rudiger laughed, dry and close, and it rumbled through Uli's chest.

"Alright," he said. 

Rudiger let go of his throat, and shoved a hand down the front of Uli's coveralls. Uli gulped air. Rudiger tweaked a nipple, then slid his fingers beneath the waist of Uli's boxers and sought out the omegas small cock. He circled it with thumb and forefinger and pumped twice. Uli gasped and arched his back, bucking his hips for more friction, and Rudiger purred, pleased, stoking him again. Uli's mind went utterly blank with the buzz of the hum and Rudiger's rumbling voice, and he spread his legs a little and tried to rub against the heavy weight of Rudiger's cock resting against his back.

Rudiger left Uli's cock, and Uli whined pitifully, shifting not in struggle but in an attempt to look back questioningly at Rudi.

"Oh, you sweet little hole," Rudi said. "How long have you been denying yourself this?"

His hand traveled upward, and for a moment, aimlessly wrapped around the stone at the end of Uli's necklace. Clarity hit Uli like a violent wave, and Uli growled, full-throated, and began to thrash with all his strength. He fully intended to throw them both from the wing of the plane. At first, Rudiger merely restrained him, but when it became clear Uli wouldn't tire any time soon, he abruptly released the struggling omega. Immediately, Uli lost his balance and Rudiger gripped the back of his head, slamming it forward against the plane. With a sickening crack, Uli slumped down. A cut on his forehead began to ooze blood. Rudiger sighed, leaned over and turned Uli's chin up, wiping the blood with his thumb. Uli gazed at him, dazed. His irises were blown.

"You're in pain," Rudiger said.

Uli nodded.

"I can help."

"You're going to rape me," Uli said.

Rudiger looked at Uli for what felt like an eternity. Then he shrugged.

"Take off your boots," he said.

Uli obeyed.

Rudiger helped Uli stand and stripped off the rest of his clothing. Uli stood, naked, hard, and gazed around the empty hangar. He knew if he ran, Rudiger would catch him, and even if he screamed for help no one would hear - or if they heard, no one would help. He was an omega in heat - a Zek from the Lower Decks. Rudiger was Premier Mede's nephew. Besides, his hindbrain soothed him, he'd felt the size of Rudiger's cock, and his own was weeping desperately. 

Rudiger climbed into the cockpit and sat down. He undid the buttons of his pants and pulled himself out. Absently, he stroked the length of his engorged cock, and Uli watched, unaware he was holding his breath. Rudiger gestured for Uli to come to him. Uli's heart beat savagely in his chest.

"I don't want this," he whispered.

"Of course you do," Rudiger said.

Uli hesitated.

Rudiger growled, and the sound sung through Uli like the hum, and he clenched, and dripped more slick. He whined. Rudiger crooked a finger at him, the picture of patience. Awkwardly, Uli clambered into the cockpit, and Rudiger helped arrange him so that Uli straddled his lap in the cramped space. Rudiger dipped his fingers into Uli's sex, not deep enough to provide satisfaction, but only enough to collect a sheen of Uli's slick into his hand. Uli stared with fascination as Rudiger spread it on his cock, mixing it with the precum already shining there. 

Rudiger noticed Uli's expression and brought his fingers up to Uli to taste, but Uli shut his mouth tight and shook his head vehemently. Rudiger rubbed the mixture over his lips anyway.

"Are you a virgin?" Rudiger asked.

Uli narrowed his eyes and answered by growling again. This time Rudiger laughed, as if charmed. He guided Uli's hips over his cock, lined them up and, slowly, sunk Uli down over the head. Uli had his hands on Rudiger's shoulders, and he drew in a sharp breath. Again, he held it.

"Breathe, dear," Rudiger said. 

Rudiger kept a bruising grip on Uli's hips, helping the omega lower himself onto his massive girth. Alphas were big in general, and Rudiger larger than most: he was restraining himself with enormous effort in order not to hurt Uli, who was tight from fear and inexperience. Halfway down, Uli made a strangled noise, equal parts panic and need. His legs shook with the strain of the position. Rudiger purred and released one hand to rub Uli's cock, and Uli moaned, gushing more slick. Rudiger used that moment to push Uli down while rolling his own hips upward, sheathing himself fully in the little omega. Uli yelped, nails digging into Rudiger's shoulders, and Rudiger groaned at the satisfaction of Uli's tight warmth. 

He leaned forward to kiss Uli's chest almost worshipfully, and as he sat back, laid a hand over Uli's stomach.

"I'm going to fill you with my seed," he said. "Make you bear for me."

Uli snorted.

Rudiger flashed him a warning look.

"I'm on birth control," Uli said.

Rudiger looked angry, and then amused.

"Oh yeah," he said, snapping his hips a few times so that Uli bounced on his cock and had to grip Rudi's arms for balance. "And suppressants, too, I'd wager?" Rudiger grinned, cruelly. "How'd that work out for you?"

Uli flushed, nose wrinkling in distaste. He didn't argue.

Rudiger slid down in the pilot's seat, adjusting them in that small space so that he could better thrust up into Uli, setting a pace as hard and fast as possible. Uli wasn't very vocal, making mostly small noises that sounded almost surprised, but Rudiger relished the way his eyes glazed and his mouth opened insensibly. Eventually he began to rise and fall of his own voalition, meeting Rudiger's upward thrusts with the downward roll of his hips, and Rudiger could tell he was growing close from the way Uli's muscles began to clench around Rudiger's cock.

Rudiger rested a hand on the back of Uli's head and tilted it to the side. He brought his teeth to the crook of Uli's shoulder where the binding mark would be, and grazed his teeth over the skin in anticipation, his knot beginning to grow.

Uli struck him. 

With unexpected force, Uli slapped one hand over Rudiger's mouth and cradled the other over the spot where Rudiger meant to sink his teeth.

"Bite me and I will break your jaw," Uli snarled.

Muzzled, Rudiger and Uli made eye contact, and Rudiger saw that Uli was serious, and Uli saw something change in Rudiger's eyes. Some hungry gleam appeared that hadn't quite been there before, and Rudi kissed the palm of Uli's hand in silent acknowledgement. Uli's hand slipped away from his mouth, though he continued to guard his neck. Rudiger resumed pounding into Uli, harder and faster, until he began to have difficulty removing the knot and with one final thrust, he ground it in, locking them together as he came. With a cry, Uli followed, spasming around Rudiger's cock as Rudiger shot him with his seed. 

Uli collapsed forward onto Rudiger's chest, exhausted, the stone necklace pressed between them. Rudiger ran his hand over the shaved sides of Uli's hair. 

"We're going to have to grow this out," he said.

"We nothing," Uli said, and in quiet Zekhish, "I'm going to fucking slit your throat."

He closed his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bad touch, Hanno Mede

Rudiger managed to knot Uli one more time before the pin returned, and it came back worse. 

Rudiger placed a call to medical after Uli began to squirm from pain, despite being locked on his knot - a time when any healthy omega would have been sleepy and content. 

And it turned out Uli wasn't the only one. Medical was busy responding to similar reports through the Lower Deck. By the time they reached Uli and Rudiger, Uli was curled up in Rudiger's lap, screaming himself hoarse.

Rudiger did what he could to calm the distressed omega: fucked him, held him, purred. He ran his hands all over Uli, massaging his aching muscles and marking him with his scent. Nothing helped. 

After the second knot, Uli frantically ordered Rudiger to fuck him again, and then shoved him off as soon as it became clear Rudi's cock could provide him no real relief. This left Rudiger humiliated and aroused, but he didn't try to mount the omega again. Something was wrong. 

Eventually, two medics rushed across the hangar floor to where Rudiger was cradling Uli. One prepared a needle, and Rudiger held Uli still as the medic injected him. 

 

It made Uli feel heavy. The screaming stopped. His screaming. He was still in immense pain, but suddenly too tired even to scream. He couldn't support himself. He let his weight fall against Rudiger, who held him. 

"That's right, Chief, that's it," Rudi said, rocking him. The last thing Uli remembered was Rudiger using a silly Upper phrase for when life is shit but no one wants to admit it. "Piece of cake, yeah? Piece of cake."

 

He woke up in what could only be described as a special sort of hell. To begin with, he was in a hospital bed, and his arms and legs were strapped down. He discovered that first, because he was still in pain, and because a fucked up primal instinct was compelling him to ease said pain through masturbation. Okay.

So he fought against the restraints, exhausting himself. 

He was still being drugged. Probably a pain medication, because he felt especially nauseous and stupid. There were IVs in his arm, and when his body shut up long enough to let his brain have a logical thought, he realized that was why they were strapped down. So they wouldn't tear the IVs out in confusion, terror, or a writhing attempt to get off.

They, because he wasn't alone. That one took him a while to figure out, because there were curtains around his bed and, for all he knew, every sound of pain he heard was coming from him. From time to time a medic pulled open his curtain and checked his vital signs or changed an IV bag. When they saw that he was awake, they usually tried to make conversation, and Uli was vaguely aware of at one point going off on a crazed, expletive-filled rant against the mining corps, which, in his addled state, became a strange focus of his rage and hurt.

Once he asked for Captain Rudiger - and also a barf bag, both in the same sentence.

From those brief glimpses beyond the curtain to the World Outside Himself, Uli slowly understood that he and several other sick omegas had been quarantined together in an infirmary wing. That the hellish screaming, crying, whining, pleading and moaning was not all him. This came as a relief, though he knew he was doing enough of it to feel ashamed. The dream-like memory of ordering Rudiger to fuck him a third time made him want to bite his own tongue off and bleed to death. It also made him writhe against the thin hospital sheet and sob, unsure why Rudi wasn't still there.

He'd had an alpha with him, in him, what the fuck went wrong?

The criminal underbelly of the Lower Deck - with which Uli was acquainted - maintained an unspoken tradition that could pretty comprehensively be summed up in four negative commandments: don't squeal, don't trust, don't fear, don't beg. And that was how youth among the Lowmen were raised. Don't squeal, don't trust, don't fear, don't beg. It was how they survived.

Uli did all four in that infirmary.

He trusted with childlike desperation anyone who touched him, from the beta medics who found his pulse and wiped his forehead, to the memory of Rudiger rutting him in the cockpit of the fighter. He begged, sweetly and with fury, and from the depths of pained despair. To be touched. To be fucked. By anyone. Rudi. _Anyone._

The medics typically responded to this by upping the drip of whatever they were using to sedate him.

And if he didn't squeal in the colloquial sense, the literal act was no less of a disgrace. 

Finally, he feared for his life. When the pain was at its worst, he _really_ feared for his life. When the pain abated and he had time to think abstractly, he feared for what _had been_ his life.

He feared Hanno Mede, who yanked back the curtain around Uli's bed and ordered a cringing medic to wake him up. The medication was decreased. Uli woke up gasping, his skin on fire where it came in contact with anything: the bed linens, the restraints, the IV tape on his arm. 

Made threw off the sheet covering him, exposing Uli's lower body, which at first was a relief and then, as the situation crystallized - pain sobering him fast - became a point of panic. Uli fell silent, and dead still. He had on an oxygen mask which he assumed was nebulizing some sort of scent blocking agent, dulling his senses so he couldn't be tempted by the smell of even the beta medics: and the medics were wearing filtration masks, similar to those Uli's own crew wore when working with dangerous gases. Mede had one of these on, covering half his face, and somehow it made the hate in his eyes more menacing. 

"Oh, Uli," he said, like a disappointed parent.

He sighed deeply, or maybe drew in and savored what little scent slipped through the filtration mask.

"What are we going to do with you," he said.

"Sir," Uli answered, unsure.

Mede liked that. He patted Uli's hand, as if in comfort or approval. Uli let out a croak that would have been a short shriek except his throat had already gone raw. The touch hurt. Didn't he want to be touched? But it hurt. He tried to focus.

"In the Upper Deck, the discipline of an omega usually falls to his alpha, or, in the absence of a bond, to the closest available alpha kin," Mede rubbed the place where Rudiger's mark would have been. "You see my dilemma, Uli? What to do."

Uli's heart dropped like a meteor and blew a crater in his stomach. That was it, then. _What will they do with me?_ had been the question worrying Uli's mind every second he had managed to wrestle his mind back long enough to worry. And over the past few hours, clarity had been coming back to him with increasing frequency.

Perhaps the heat - the illness - was waning. And what could he look forward to once it ended? Mede's monologuing told him all he needed to know. That he was no longer worthy of a court martial, and yet still too valuable - as a commodity - to toss in the brig, or out the airlock. Would he end up stashed in the closet of some aristocrat who could "discipline" him as they pleased?

He'd rather go out the airlock.

Uli wracked his brain for anything he could say to prevent this fate.

"Plane," he wheezed. 

And Mede heard him. Uli was sure of it. 

Mede shook his head.

"What was that, dear?" He said.

Mede reached over and removed Uli's oxygen mask.

Uli held his breath. It barely made a difference. He could feel his brain cottoning instantly. 

Mede's hand moved between his thighs. Uli thrashed. Mede pushed three fingers into him. There was little resistance.

Uli keened miserably. His lungs burned.

The bedding had already been ruined with his slick, and as Mede pumped his fingers, Uli produced more. His vision dimmed.

He thought about broken capillaries. Exposure to space. Asphyxiation. Blackness. He gasped. The infirmary was thick with the scene of omega in heat, with hints of soapy beta here and there. Through it all, Uli could practically taste Mede. 

Uli lacked the language to describe Mede's scent. It contained tones that must have made sense back on the home world. Once, when sorting through storage in search of an old part, Uli discovered an ancient gray plastic baggie - the kind used to protect sensitive electronics - which, opened, revealed a handful of coarse brown powder. Uli knew enough about the old world from Zekhish texts to guess that what he'd found was genuine fucking dirt. Not the foul smelling sewage-compost-algae they used to fertilize their food, but dirt that smelled like stable ecosystem, a small piece of a planet little but grand. Uli had stood in storage that day, breathing in the wonderful scent of the bag, and he felt a longing as primal as the longing of heat; _home_. 

Mede smelled a little like dirt. 

So did Rudiger.

Mede was finger fucking him in the infirmary. He smelled so good. Uli wanted to scream.

"Not enough," he panted. Mede chuckled at that. Uli wanted to scratch out his eyes. That's not what he meant. 

Mede's fingers were not enough, yes. But being an omega and nothing else was also not enough. 

Living out an entire life in the confines of a single spaceship? Stupid idea. Not enough.

Uli writhed against his restraints. And Mede added another finger, twisting deeper. Uli moaned.

And yet it didn't matter. It didn't matter how much he despised it. He didn't have control over anything. His body used what little leverage it had to fuck itself on Mede's hand. Maybe more, maybe deeper, and the pain would go away. Mede's touch burned like a brand inside him, but release was all his instincts understood and, as it had at the onset of his heat, Uli began to feel a building white pleasure that threatened to help him forget the pain.

He cried.

"What do you need, omega?" Mede said.

Uli knew what Mede wanted to hear, and he didn't exactly disagree: the last relief he remembered was the thrum of the plane's crystal and Rudiger talking nonsense, Uli half asleep on his knot. Mede had the scent of a bonded alpha, but that made little difference when he was the only one around. 

And that gave Uli a thought.

"Tell me," Mede prompted, impatient. 

_Mede's nephew._

No wonder the Premier was here, checking Uli's shoulder where there would be a bonding mark. 

Tears still in his eyes, Uli started laughing. He had an answer for Mede.

Rocking his hips, Uli moaned, as lewdly as he imagined possible, making it clear he was putting on a scene. 

"Rudi," he whined, high-pitched, mocking.

Mede's eyes flashed with disdain. He leaned close to Uli's face. 

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said. He hooked his fingers, scratching. Uli stopped laughing. He screamed.

A beta woman wearing a Zekhish headwrap and a short blue medical jacket pushed through the curtain in alarm. She took in the situation, and schooled her wide-eyed shock into an expression of blank professionalism with surprising speed. Uli saw her, clenched his jaw and looked away in shame. Mede saw her, and continued to pump his fingers into Uli, knowing that it hurt him for her to see. Daring her to say a word to stop it.

God bless her. She did.

Jepseth Lemosk crossed her arms over her chest and leveled a bloodless stare at the man who determined life or death on the Bellerophon.

"Excuse me, my Premier," she said, "I need to take the patient's vitals now."

Mede relented graciously.

"Of course, Vani Lemosk," he said, pulling his hand away. "Neither of us would want to risk the health of omega, now would we?" 

He wiped his fingers off on the side of Uli's face.

"Thank you, Excellency," Jepseth said.

Mede bowed politely. Jepseth pretended to get to work. She fiddled with Uli's IV bags.

"Oh, and Lemosk?" Mede said, turning to leave. "My deepest regrets regarding your husband."

Uli heard Jepsepth working to swallow her grief. "Thank you, my Premier."

His entire being began to boil over with rage and terror. No, he thought. No, no. No no no no. "What the fuck did you do to him?" Uli shouted. "What the _fuck_ did you do to him? What did you do-"

"Hush, Uli," Jepseth snapped, and the disappointment in her voice silenced him.

Mede stared at him. "Your own punishment will be determined as soon as you've recovered, Uli Kajosk."

He left. 

It was too much at once. Uli listened in despair to the muffled tortured sounds of the omegas surrounding him, as well as the steady murmuring of machines and medics alike, each confidently executing their function. He resumed crying, but in exhaustion, tears falling down his face quietly and uncontrolled. He couldn't bring himself to look at Jepseth. He hated them, Rudiger and Mede. And he hated himself, in that moment, even more. He'd lost control of everything. 

Jepseth cleared her throat. She was unstrapping one of his arms. As Uli freed the other, she covered his lower body with the hospital sheet. Uli used it to wipe his face of slick and tears. He replaced the oxygen mask and took a shaky, centering breath of scentless air. He focused on the curtains around his bed, the same antiseptic blue as Jepseth's jacket. She dragged a chair over to his bed and sat down. He still wouldn't look at her. He couldn't.

Jepseth grabbed Uli's ear and pulled, hard.

"Hey-" Uli said.

"Hey yourself, you ungrateful shtik drek," _shit head_ , okay, he deserved that, "shanda-sohn," disgrace of a son, and Uli winced at more than the soreness of his ear. 

Jepseth only referred to him as her son at moments of extreme pride or frustration. She was a mostly unflappable woman, and Uli could count the number of times it had happened on one hand: when she first found out he'd joined a gang, for example, or when he'd graduated Officer's Academy. Uli wasn't her son, of course, but she had - more or less grudgingly - fulfilled a parental role in Uli's life ever since she caught him burgling Zev's medical supplies some eighteen years ago. 

She hit him with a barrage of complex Zekhish curses, for which Jepseth had a unique gift. She released his ear to better illustrate a few of her finer points with impolite gesturing. 

Uli rubbed the side of his head and relaxed somewhat into the rhythm of Jepseth's anger. He realized that she was less concerned with his transgressions than she was using this moment to vent her misery onto someone she could trust. She must have been holding it all in since the shit hit the fan, so to say. Uli knew her two sons didn't buy the stoic act for an instant, but she couldn't lose her cool around them no matter what. Uli Kajosk, fake son and colossal fuck up, on the other hand, was fair game.

"Why didn't you answer your coms! We tried to warn you!"

"I don't know, Jep," he said, "I was careless."

"Selfish! Arrogant!"

He nodded along.

"I ought to strangle you with the umbilical cord of your first child," she snapped.

It was really a routine type of Lower Deck curse, a difficult thing to explain to those who weren't raised with it. You took offense to the intent, not the content, of a curse: the content was less for you and more for your audience. There was nothing Lowmen loved more than humor. They lived on the theory that neither tears nor laughter made anyone less hungry, but at least laughter made everyone momentarily less miserable: and living quarters in the Lower Deck were so cramped that all arguments had audiences, wanted or not. It was their theater, and people built reputations over the crudity or complexity of their curses.

Jepseth was a midwife, and so it was no surprise she defaulted to dead baby jokes. Uli almost appreciated the sentiment - it meant Jepseth still saw him as a beta male, since she'd never, ever say such a thing to anyone who could actually produce children. And Uli wasn't offended. He was reminded, with a full body shudder, of Rudiger's teasing. He looked at Jepseth, and said in a voice uncharacteristically small:

"Am I pregnant?" 

Jepseth looked heartbroken.

"It's too early to know," she said. 

They both saw it would be better for him if he were. That a baby would be leverage.

Uli didn't care. He couldn't survive carrying a pregnancy to term.

Yet he knew, even as he thought it, that he could. That if anything really, truly marked him as a Lowman, it was his drive to survive, and to survive at all costs.

Jepseth buried her face in her hands.

"I'm so sorry, Uli," she said. "This is all my fault."

"How?" Uli snapped, cold.

Jepseth raised her head in surprise.

"Zev would never have done it if I hadn't pressed. It was my idea," she said, squaring her shoulders defensively.

Uli scoffed.

"That would have been wrong and you know it, mamele." _Mama._ "Don't be stupid."

They went quiet again. Jepseth dabbed at her eyes with her shirtsleeve, and Uli continued staring at the curtain. He wanted to lose himself its neutral blue, to let his mind take on that blank color, the way the flat screens of the engine room's status indicator panels occasionally went blue when they were buggy. 

It was a new feeling. Uli had always been very focused, capable of sitting still and studying a book for hours without distraction, or of spending a long graveyard watch in the engine room without growing tired or bored. He wasn't one to let his mind go blank, much less actively desire it. Nor was he one to feel disconnected from his body, which he considered a formidable tool, despite its bullshit. 

Yet suddenly his mind had blue-screened and was floating, as if in psychological zero g, some distance from his body.

"Nu," Jepseth said. _Hey._ She held out her hand for him.

Uli became aware of his own hands, folded in his lap so tight his knuckles were white. He unfolded them as if they were the hands of a rusted automaton and not his own.

Jepseth held his hand in both her own, and the gentle pressure grounded him somewhat. It hurt - he was oversensitive all over still - but nothing like Mede's touch. He tore his eyes away from the curtain and looked at her.

"Shala, Jepseth," he said.

It was the Zekhish word for wholeness, or peace, or being home. It was their way of saying hello.

"Wa shalan, Uli," she said.

Uli began to think again, whether he liked it or not. He had a lot to think about.

"What happened?"

Jepseth stood and messed with the monitor beside his bed.

"Temperature 99," she said. "Normal. You're coming down."

"How did you even get up here?" Uli wondered.

"You asked for me on the first day. Shouted. Rather insistently, I take it. Thank god you did. I'm the one with all your medical records."

"First day?"

"It's been about 72 hours since you," she tilted her head to the side, visibly seeking the best way to word what had happened to him, "the onset of your illness."

"My heat," he said.

"Yes and no," she said. "Sit up."

He sat up. She put on a stethoscope and pressed its cold disk to his back. He jumped.

"What does that mean?" 

"Shut up and breathe," she said.

He realized she wasn't trying to avoid the subject. She really was there to take his vitals. Jepseth wasn't a doctor in the sense that she didn't have a degree from the Academy, but that made little difference in the Lower Deck, especially among orthodox Zekhish women and omegas, who generally objected to being alone in a room with a male alpha, or even touched by one. Dr-with-a-degree or not, Jepseth shared her husband's workload, and handled a great deal of the gynecological care on her own. This was useful in two ways: she wasn't unclean to the religious, for one, and when it to childbirth, if she didn't have a degree, she wasn't obligated to report anything illegal. Jepseth couldn't risk a medical rank if she didn't have one. 

Uli had always considered it short-sighted, in terms of sustainability: the Bellerophon only produced enough food for its official population, after all. But Zev and Jepseth were sticklers for personal choice, and besides, without illegal birth the Zeks would've been wiped out a long time ago. He couldn't argue that. 

So of course hiding the omegas had been Jepseth's idea. They were her patients. And of course Zev took the fall for them both. No one took a Zek in a headwrap seriously as a scientist, and Zev loved his wife more than life itself.

"Good," Jepseth said. So his lungs were still normal, at least.

She took his pulse.

"You're alive," she joked. 

"You done?" Uli said.

"Yes."

"What happened?"

She sat. "Your suppressants stopped working. I don't know why."

Uli knew that much, unfortunately. "Bad batch?"

"Possibly? But only _we_ were effected." The Zekhish omegas. "And how is that possible? We distributed from a supply that went everywhere."

Which meant they skimmed the pills off general medical storage.

"And it wouldn't have hit all at once like this. All of you took pills from us at different times. If there was a bad batch, the reaction should have been staggered."

"Theories?" He knew she had one.

"Best I can come up with?" She tucked a stray hair back under her headwrap. "They put something in the water. Or the air supply. Hormones. An accelerant. You know the life support systems better than I do, would that work?"

Uli shook his head. "Water, maybe, but it still isn't targeted enough. Every Lower Deck omega would be in heat, not just us. And it assumes we all drank a cup of water at roughly the same time, which would be a fun new ritual I'm unaware of, at least."

"Whatever it was, it was amateur." Jepseth was pissed. " _Whoever_ it was assumed that heat accelerants can just be fed to omegas at any old dose, no problem. Nu, do you know what Sottac thought the problem was?" Chief Medical Officer of the Upper Deck Sottac, source of Jepseth's perpetual disdain in all matters reproductive. "That it was because you'd been on suppressants too long. Yeah. You almost died because you haven't been _fucked_ enough on a regular basis."

She splayed her hands out on either side of her head and made an exploding noise.

Uli caressed the surface of his pendant, lost in thought. Something in Jepseth's rant struck him, but he couldn't pin it down. 

"Pure alpha bullshit," she said. "I mean it, it's a good thing Captain Hot Shot took you seriously enough to come and get me."

He turned to face her so fast he almost got whiplash.

"What?" 

"Big redheaded Upper boy," she said. "Pilot's uniform. He brought me here, forced them to let me in. They weren't so happy about that, either."

Uli began to blue-screen again.

Jepseth straightened in her seat when it hit her.

"Oh god, of course," she said. "It was him."

Uli didn't know what to say. _Yeah, him, he raped me._ But also, apparently, saved my life.

No, Jepseth saved his life. Rudiger merely did something less-than-dumb. That was it. That was all.

He shrugged.

"I don't know why I thought," Jepseth shook her head. "It's been insane. I thought Mede-"

"Same scent," Uli said, though Jepseth - a beta - would only have a vague sense of individual scent.

Jepseth sighed. Her shoulders dropped. Uli saw that she had dark bags under her eyes. They were both a mess, and Uli felt bad suddenly for pitying himself when he hadn't even asked about Zev. And the steadily deepening self-hatred reared its ugly head again. He knew he hadn't asked because he was afraid to ask.

"It doesn't matter," he said.

Jepseth squared her jaw and fixed him with a doubting stare. He didn't give in.

"Really," he said.

And in a way he meant it. He didn't want to even think about Virdin fucking Rudiger taking him seriously right then. He gathered himself for the question he had to ask.

"What have they done to Zev?"

Jepseth seemed to shrink.

"He's alive," she said.

A cold wave of relief washed over him.

"They've sentenced him to death."

Uli assumed as much. Overpopulation in the Lower Deck meant their lives were cheap. 

"Okay," he said. "What's the hold up?" 

Because it shouldn't be hard to open an airlock, even for the shining intellect that was Premier Mede.

"Sein Abbot believes his execution would be a waste of resources. They're 'evaluating this argument.'"

"Huh," Uli said.

Which is about all he could come up with in response to that: _huh_.

"I haven't been down home in days," Jepseth said, "But from what the boys tell me, people are angry about this. And not just the Zeks."

"He's alive," Uli said, as though that were all he heard. "Alright. I can work with that. I can fix this."

Especially if he were pregnant with the blood of Hanno Mede. 

"Uli," Jepseth said. There was worry and warning in her voice.

All of this was just engine damage. He could fix it, if the materials were there. Even if they weren't the materials he was used to. Improvisation made a good engineer, after all.

"Piece of cake," Uli said.

His stomach cramped.

Fuck, he hurt all over. But it wasn't as bad as it had been. 

"I'm not giving you any more painkillers," Jepseth said, seeing his expression. "They're half the reason you feel so sick."

Fine by him.

"How long until I can talk to Mede?" he said.

Jepseth stood and consulted the monitor again. "I'd give it about 12 hours, to be safe."

Uli reached down to unstrap the restraints around his ankles and made a face. "Can I get some new fucking sheets?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was supposed to be much longer and have more going on, but I'm literally writing this at my terrible job between calls, which means that I get to put down like three words every twenty minutes. in other words, slow going. so I figured i'd put this out since its been a while.
> 
> also i made a tumblr recently if anyone's interesting (lmao shameless) velvelish.tumblr.com anyway sorry have fun


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3: everyone showers, rudi is a frat boy, mede family values, uli my love now is not the time for imposter syndrome, in a pinch murdering a dictator with a pen? is still a bad idea
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who kodus comments etc each of you make my day I can't tell you how much I appreciate it

Rudiger was in the red.

He saw it at the same time as Mission Control.

"Blair 4," she said.

"Copy," he replied, before she could get any more specific. Rudi checked his parameters, and saw that he was slightly off the position specified in their flight plan. This made him into a flashing red dot on everyone's control screen: not a huge embarrassment, but enough to irritate him, and Rudiger was already in a mood. He gave his lateral thrusters a gentle tap, and Blair 4 went blue.

It was the sort of mistake they ribbed greenhorns for. It wouldn't happen at all if pilots just stayed on auto like they were supposed to, but no self-respecting pilot ever did. The goal was to fly manual in such a way that Control never saw the difference.

In his defense, he'd only had 16 hours to review the flight plan. He was filling in for a pilot who broke her arm during hand-to-hand combat exercises the day before.

Ever since volunteering to test pilot the Sulamit starfighter, Rudi had been wiped off the rotation of regular flight work. This was great when the Sulamit engine deigned to work, and he got to put a challenging, high powered craft through dangerous exercises. But when the engine was kaput, he had nothing to do. Rudi enjoyed the free time at first, but too much of it turned to boredom, and now he was frustrated on top of that. When he'd heard of an opening on this flight, he'd volunteered immediately. It was still pretty boring, but it was something, at least. 

Everyone on The Bellerophon wanted to be a pilot: they were the first line of defense against attack, and saw the most of space besides, perhaps, the Mining Corps. Young Hanno Mede had served as a pilot, and so flight qualification implied inclusion into the same club as he. All of this combined to make them into minor celebrities among the Upper and Middle Decks, which did wonders for Rudi's ego regularly.

He didn't know about Lowmen, but got the impression they worried about other things.

In truth, piloting was a lot less glamorous than it seemed. Tablet publications made it sound like every mission was grueling and adventurous, but on the whole things were routine, even tedious. The Bellerophon hadn't been attacked since Hanno was a Lieutenant, and while they occasionally ran the starfighters through war games, the average mission was like this. Rudiger and five other pilots were helping affix a newly acquired asteroid to the section of The Bellerophon that belonged to the Mining Corps. They were flying Blairs, the spacecraft equivalent of a bucket: simple and handy. When the crew with the asteroid arrived, Rudiger and his others would match its velocity, grip the big hunk of rock using special attachments to the Blairs, slow it down, and then guide it home.

In other words, he was a glorified ferry.

Still, the g forces exerted on them during each big burn required for an asteroid-homing flight usually caused someone to pass out, and they had a betting pool in the pilot's barracks over who it would be. 

As a mission, it didn't have anything like the excitement of flying a starfighter. Flying a starfighter felt like fucking, and usually left Rudi hard in his jumpsuit. But the Cork 2 was out of commission until Uli recovered, and Rudiger wasn't really having any trouble getting a hard-on these past few days. Not that he ever did, of course, but he _had_ thought he was past the age of 15, hormonally speaking.

Whenever his mind wandered, he caught himself thinking about fucking Uli, drawing from memory and, increasingly, fantasy. The clothing he'd worn that day still sat in a pile on the floor of his room, and Rudi picked them up now and again to draw in a deep breath of the omegas scent. He knew it was weird, but couldn't bring himself to throw them down the laundry chute just yet. What if never got to scent Uli again? His mind needled him with the thought, but that seemed unlikely. They still needed to work on the plane.

For the most part, his fantasies revolved around bonding Uli, and each time he brought himself to the edge of orgasm, Rudi felt overcome with an anger - at himself, at Uli - that he had held back; had acceded to Uli's desire to remain unmated, when he should've forced the matter, made the hesitant omega _his_.

It was insane, and he knew it.

It bothered him how swiftly Uli became 'his omega' in this thoughts. Not because it reduced Uli. The Chief had put up a good show, but in the end an omega was what he was. It bothered Rudi because he was acting like he'd never knotted an omega in heat before. Uli Kajosk was hardly his first.

Although, he thought, he had certainly never been kicked off and told his cock was useless before now. 

That was a first.

Rudi shifted uncomfortably in the straps of the pilot seat. He was half hard again. He cupped himself, and considered jacking off. There was about an hour to go until the asteroid reached them, and in the meantime all they had to do was sit around, maintain position, and wait. A mission jack wasn't entirely unheard of, what with how many pilots were young men who needed to blow off steam. 

But Rudi wasn't sure whether they equipped the Blairs with cameras. Probably. Asteroid-homing was drudge work, but critical, and Control probably wanted an eye on any pilots who lost consciousness, to make sure the black out didn't last too long. So he figured he'd spare Control that display. Besides, cumming in zero g made a mess.

The coms had gone silent, save periodic updates by the pilot of the retrieval craft pushing the asteroid toward The Bellerophon. He told them nothing they didn't already know, but it was procedure. The Blair pilots treated it as background noise. 

"So," a voice broke through the silence. Rudi recognized it immediately as his roommate, Captain-Lieutenant Genry Howe. Genry drew out the vowels of that _so_ in way that warned Rudi what was next. "What was it like to fuck a Zek, Blair 4? I've always wondered; did, you know, the nose get in the way? Please report. Over."

It was bait and Rudi bit. He grabbed the yoke and jammed his thumb down on the transmit button.

"No one wants to know what you think about when you jack off, shitbird."

Rudi could practically hear the laughter in the other Blairs, although no one dared contribute to the conversation. Amazingly, Genry transmit again.

"Well, seeing how much mileage you've got out of it, Captain, seems only nice to share."

"Gentlemen." Rudi had expected Control to intervene, but instead it was the clipped Upper accent of Belinden Lyre, commander of the incoming retrieval craft. "I would appreciate you leaving this line open for mission critical information only, please."

The 'please' was like a doorslam.

The line went silent.

Rudi didn’t know much about Lin Lyre except that he was the only pilot who worked exclusively with the Mining Corps, and also that he was a freak. Asteroid retrieval missions could take up to to two years, or more, and most of the personnel involved crewed in rotation: go out for one, take the next off, vice versa. It protected them from the ill effects of going too long without simulated gravity, and allowed them to lead semi-normal social lives. 

But Lyre volunteered to pilot retrieval missions consecutively. One after the other. He’d spent more time off the Bellerophon than on it, and always seemed eager to get away again. He had Upper clearance but lived on the Lower Deck, and would appear every once in a blue moon at the pilot's barracks to steal their supples. Soap and tea bags, mostly, which apparently the Lower Deck lacked. For the most part, he avoided the other pilots, and they were more than happy to avoid him.

He made Rudi reflexively uneasy.

Lyre was the last omega pilot on active duty, and everything about him was wrong. His gaunt, emaciated body was a testament to the harm of piloting on omega physiology, and the virtue of Rudi's grandfather's decision to ban them from the service. But it wasn't the awkwardness of sharing their branch with an omega that made the alpha pilots of wary of Lyre. He also had no scent - save perhaps the scent of standard issue soap. He moved like a ghost through The Bellerophon.

It was unnatural.

Rudi thought about tonguing Uli's throat to taste the scent that had been so thickly coated by suppressants and scent blocking soap. But that was different. His scent was there, and Rudi's senses had known it before even he did. There was nothing unnatural about Uli. Except perhaps his attitude, but that could be almost fun. Rudi leaned his head back and closed his eyes, caught again in the train of thoughts that led to Uli Kajosk, _his_ omega. 

His pocket vibrated.

Rudi twisted until he was able to pry the tablet from his jumpsuit hip pocket. The Bellerophon was barely a speck in the distance - Rudi could only see it because his eyes were well trained - but they were still close enough to pick up even informal communication signals. Rudi looked at the screen. It was a message from his uncle.

_dinner w/ me + your father 2000_

Rudi let the tablet float in front of him as he ran both hands down his face. He tried to think of an excuse to miss but knew none of them would work. Uncle Hanno undoubtedly had his schedule, and the power to clear or to command him to clear anything he could come up with. He had wanted to spend the rest of his wake-shift first, beating the shit out of Genry, and then screwing around in their rooms, maybe beat Genry again in a battle simulator. He also wanted to check on Uli, although he wasn't allowed anywhere near the room where the omegas were being held: but he'd charmed Jepseth into passing on regular status updates, in messages he was sure were being monitored by Abbot. 

What he didn't want to do was was dig a dress uniform out of the closet, clean up, and spend three hours trying to dodge the subject with which his family was definitely about to ambush him.

He sighed and swiped the tablet down from where it had been slowly drifting away.

 _yes sir_ he typed back, and shoved it back into his pocket.

Lyre was communicating again, this time between Control and the nuclear propulsion engineer on his crew. He was coordinating their part of the slowdown, which was also Rudi's cue to start paying attention. Lyre and his crew would expend what remained of their propellant in a final deceleration, and then was the Blairs turn to bring her home.

"Main engine shut down in three," Lyre was saying, "two, one."

There was a long pause as Lyre's craft retired, then the voice of the engineer confirming shut down complete.

"Lyre to Control," Lin said. He sounded tired, and not exactly relieved. "Send in Blair Squadron."

 

At the debriefing, Control gave Rudi and Genry a slap on the wrist for misuse of mission communications, as well as a lecture on the gross misconduct of making a dick joke while handling a large asteroid. Genry tried pointing out that the asteroid was still several thousand kilometers away when said dick joke - not even really a dick joke, per se - was made, but this did little very little in his defense. Genry was grounded for a week, and Control promised both of them a big file of cadet busywork from the Officer's Academy to grade.

Back in the pilot's barracks, Rudi stripped off his jumpsuit and made for the showers. The Pilot Corps' barracks were a series of small two bedroom apartments, not much better than the dorms at the Officer's Academy and certainly not barracks in the true sense of the term, like those shared by grunts in the Engineer and Mining Corps. Each apartment had a cramped common area, taken up mostly by a shared work desk, which then split into two narrow, semi-private rooms that fit little more than a single bed. The rooms could only be called semi-private, as the wall dividing them was notoriously thin, and so Rudi couldn't really blame Genry for being annoyed, he supposed.

The whole barracks showered together, which was a common practice throughout The Bellerophon, save among the Zeks, who were prudes. On the Upper Deck, communal showers could be fairly lavish affairs, their spa-like atmosphere a popular meeting place. In the pilot's barracks, Upper but military, the showers were purely utilitarian: a bare room with six timed nozzles, and accompanying soap dispensers.

It was crowded when Rudi arrived. Blairs weren't the best at expelling waste heat, so piloting them always worked up a sweat, and most of the homing mission was there washing it off. A couple of second shifters were there - those, like Rudi, whose waking hours were from about 0800 to 2200 - winding down their day. All of the nozzles were occupied, so Rudi sidled up to Genry - whose eyes were closed beneath a warm stream - and unceremoniously punched him in the shoulder to get him to step aside. 

Genry spat. 

"Or you could ask nicely," he said, rubbing his arm and making room for Rudi.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rudi said, moving under the spray. He pressed the timer button twice to make sure it didn't turn off on him too soon. "Get the fuck out of my way, please."

"Very considerate. Thank you."

"Only the respect you deserve."

"And that I have come to expect," Genry said, pumping the soap dispenser and lathering its contents into his hair.

Rudi grinned. "Fuck you, by the way."

"You never did answer my question."

"Not going to give you that satisfaction, no."

The nozzle shut off. Rudi restarted the timer and switched places with Genry, so Genry could rinse while he soaped up.

"What're you up to?" Genry asked, "Later, that is. Ayida's made some sort of rice beer, and I figure we could get a start on grading those papers, but properly, you know, which is to say, completely smashed."

Rudi gathered soap in his palm and began to spread it over his chest. It smelled like the infirmary; like antiseptic chemicals, with a hint of flowery sweetness, to make it more palatable. 

Ayida Tom Soyon was Genry's alpha girlfriend, from a family that straddled the Upper and Middle Decks socially. She was an apprentice chemist and infamous party girl - an explosive combination, at times literally - and Rudi couldn't imagine she would put up with grading papers long.

He sighed with real regret.

"As much as I'd love to third wheel on a night in with your girlfriend - and I mean that, truly," Rudi said, " _His Excellency_ has summoned me to dinner with daddy dearest."

Genry made a face. "Yikes."

"Yeah."

Genry finished up and wished him good luck. Rudi rinsed off until the nozzle stopped, hit it again, and self-indulgently stood under the hot water until it shut off once more.

He dried and returned to his room. He could hear Genry on a video call making plans with Ayida in the next room. He checked his own tablet for messages from Jepseth and found none. Maybe it was one of those weird days when the Zeks thought themselves forbidden by god from operating a tablet or whatever. He didn't know. He reread her last update. 

_stabilizing. hopeful recovery soon._

All of her messages were like this: short, distantly polite. Offering only an overview - up or down - and no details. It was an expression of of gratitude for having brought hr to the Upper medical sector, which bruised not a few egos. The stereotype said that Zekhish women were loud and abrasive: Jepseth hadn't struck Rudi as unnecessarily loud, though she certainly let Sottac know when bullshit was bullshit. Abrasive maybe, but also brave.

Rudi liked her, and he hoped Hanno let her live.

There was a panel in the back of his room that served as a closet. Rudi slid it open and considered his dress uniform, then decided he didn't feel like it. Dad would be pissed, but he had a feeling dad was pissed already, and in the end, like hell was he going to wear a stiff collar to his own intervention.

 

"My boy," Vega Rudiger said, resting both hands on his son's shoulders in a form of distant embrace. "What are you wearing?"

"Something comfortable," Rudi said, and bowed slightly to kiss his father's cheeks in greeting. When he pulled away, he saw that Vega had fixed him with A Look.

His father was very good at Looks.

"Dad, please," Rudi said. "It's just us. Who do I have to impress?"

Vega's big eyes flicked toward Hanno, who stood at the head of the table. Rudi didn't know if that was the answer to his question, or if he was being told to greet his uncle before he got any further into the room. 

"Sir," he said, executing a pilot's salute, open hand raised eye level with palm facing inward. Hanno briefly returned the same.

"Your flight was fair?" Hanno asked, referring to the recently completed mission. It was an odd, archaic turn of phrase that the pilots used to speak of missions where nothing had gone catastrophically wrong.

Rudi nodded.

"Uneventful," he said.

He pulled back a chair for his father before standing at a place on the opposite side of the table. Hanno and Rudi waited until Vega motioned for them to sit, a bit of pageantry intended to give influence to the least powerful person at the dinner. Alphas saw it as being respectful, though as a boy Rudi had once overheard his father commiserating with other omegas about how difficult the renewed practice made moving at all: if everyone had to stand for you to get up, getting up became impolite. 

"And to answer your question," Vega said, waving a hand around the room, "it is never 'just us,' and you know it."

Of course.

Rudi craned his neck to look overhead until he found it: a small, familiar dome in the corner of the room, its dark lensed camera recording everything they did.

He held it in his gaze a for a while, as if daring any Viewer or future viewer to watch him, which he knew they would. 

"It's for the historical record, darling," Vega continued. He was unfolding a napkin over his lap and lecturing at the same time. "When your great-grandchildren are settling a planet and want to look back upon how they got there, they will view these recordings and from them, form an impression of the contributions of the Mede-Rudigers. As you can imagine-"

Rudi had heard it all before, especially since he preferred to ignore the cameras in a way his father found unthinkable; or he paid too much attention to them, saluting facetiously and making eye contact. To Vega, a consummate actor, this was equally bad. Vega Rudiger, née Mede, was the face of The Bellerophon's only official newscast. Insofar as any Upper omega had a career, appearances were his. Rudi had grown up with constant reminders that his relationship to the cameras must be organic, which only backfired by making his awareness of thiem that much more conspicuous. 

The recordings weren't viewable to the general public, of course, and access to them was guarded neurotically by Abbot. In many ways, they really were for posterity. Every once in a while, or when he was drunk enough to stumble into a philosophical frame of mind, Rudi wondered about the implications of their being a ruling class constantly under the literal visual scrutiny of the future. How that affected the decisions they made.

He realized then that there must be stored footage out there of him fucking Uli, and he felt immensely satisfied. 

"It is important," Vega finished.

"Your father's right," Hanno said.

He saw that they had strategized this: not this lecture in particular - even Vega, with his labyrinthine mind, wouldn't have necessarily predicted casual-wear - but that they were going to present a united front against him throughout the whole show. It put Rudi in a belligerent frame of mind.

"Well," he said, "I sure hope the future doesn't judge my sweater too harshly."

Vega sighed. 

Hanno seemed caught between amusement and telling Rudiger off.

"Virdin," he said, mildly.

Hanno gestured toward an aid who had been waiting in the wings for his signal.

"My apologies, father," Rudi said. "You are, of course, absolutely correct."

Vega managed to roll his eyes without actually doing so. He accomplished this by pretending to follow the progress of the aid, who was making her way around the table, unobtrusively pouring wine into each glass from a truly priceless bottle. Rudi wondered if she ever drank from it when she thought no one was looking, and then entertained the idea of finding her later and sharing a glass.

He tasted the wine. It was strawberry.

They were silent as the aid distributed their food. There was only one course, and Rudi could guess what it was before it was set in front of him: a salad of some type. Everyone on The Bellerophon consumed a fairly low-calorie vegetarian diet, simply because that was what Agriculture produced. This meant mostly leafy greens, along with daily pill supplements, their nutrients derived in a variety of ways. There were extravagances, if you held the right sway, and Rudi had tasted a few of them: mostly unusual fruits, and alcohols made from fruits.

Hanno could be opulent about many things, but food wasn't one of them. Even his dining room seemed surprisingly small, though its furnishing were all antique. Rudi recalled the way Uli reacted to the wood of Hanno's office desk: it must have been the most alien material Uli had ever touched, even for a man whose whole life was dedicated to studying the properties of alien materials. Growing up around Hanno, Rudi was embarrassingly familiar with old world artifacts: he'd even broke a few as a boy.

Finished prepping their meal, the aid retreated.

Rudi wanted control of this conversation as much as possible, so he spoke first, although protocol was to let Vega chose the topic.

"Where's Imilce?" He asked, remarking on the absence of Hanno's mate at what was ostensibly a family dinner. 

Vega's fork paused mid-air.

Hanno accepted Rudi's impoliteness in stride. "She sends her regrets, but is feeling too ill to attend."

Rudi often wondered whether Imilce Mede's frequent bouts of illness were real or contrived, and if contrived, by whom. Most likely, it was a combination of both and both: both real and contrived, and both Hanno and Imilce capitalizing on the contrivances. Imilce _was_ notoriously infertile, which Rudi had mixed feelings about, since it put him directly in line to succeed. For a man as jealous of power as he, Hanno had always been oddly okay with this. He and Rudiger Sr. had been good friends, and Rudi's father died when he was young enough that Hanno had always functioned as an alpha-father-figure in his life, anyway. 

It helped that, by all accounts, Rudi looked exactly like his grandfather.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Vega said.

"Belinden Lyre is back," Rudi blurted.

Vega made a sound into his wine glass that could actually have qualified for sputtering.

"Is that so," Hanno said, as if he hadn't already read the evening report.

Vega bat his lashes in the way he did when he wanted alphas to believe he was an idiot. Hanno and Rudi knew better, but Vega had been navigating Upper society for so long that much of his artifice was now automatic. It annoyed Rudi as much as it hazily hurt him to see.

"Really," Vega said. "It's amazing to think an omega could continue so long in such a strenuous military profession. Perhaps he ought to be retired for his own good."

Hanno hummed, neither affirmation nor denial.

Vega only allowed for a single beat, but Hanno must have known or at least trusted Vega to bring the conversation around to bear - and Rudi only belatedly realized he'd offered his father a perfect opening.

"Surley Uli Kajosk will be stripped of his rank," Vega said, canting toward his brother deferentially. 

Rudi shoved a forkful of salad into his mouth.

Hanno reached for his wine glass. 

"Stripped of rank," he said, "and settled into an appropriate bond."

At that, Rudi lost his appetite completely.

"Who?" he snapped.

Hanno turned the full weight of his attention onto Rudi, and Rudi felt a flicker of - not fear - but awareness that he'd wandered into a belt more dangerous than perhaps he'd been anticipating. Of course Rudi had known his uncle would resist any suggestion of bonding Uli to their line - Rudi himself hadn't been entirely serious about it, or so he thought - but there was something more in Hanno's eyes, something cold and deadly serious.

"I fail to see how it has anything to do with you," Hanno said. 

Rage at the thought of another alpha claiming Uli warred with knowledge that acquiescing to Hanno would ensure the omega's life. Because the look in Hanno's eyes was unmistakably murderous.

But an Uli bonded to another alpha was as good as a dead Uli, and besides, who the _fuck_ was Hanno to tell Rudi what do with his mate.

It was an insane thought, and this must have shown on his face, because when Vega spoke again, he spoke softly, as if trying to ease apart two alphas who'd gone unexpectedly feral. Even Hanno seemed surprised by the force of Rudi's reaction - with the fact that Rudi had not immediately shrunk back - and he responded with the beginnings of a low growl. Vega cut his brother off with an imperiously raised hand. He leaned forward to touch his son's arm, to draw Rudi's focus away from his uncle - a threat - to himself. An omega. Weak. In need of protection. Slower to anger and therefore more sensible in these situations. 

Rudi felt how his hands had balled into fists, and the muscles of his arms were straining.

"Son," Vega said. "What you're feeling right now is entirely instinctual.

He squeezed Rudi's arm reassuringly.

"Your body thinks the omega is pregnant with your offspring, and it makes you confused and insecure that he remains unbonded with you. I promise you, what you're feeling isn't grounded, and it will pass."

"Is he?" Rudi demanded.

"Is he what, dear?" Vega asked, carefully.

"Pregnant." 

"No," Hanno said.

Vega gave Hanno a look that contained some genuine emotion, but it had been so long since Rudi last interacted with his real father - not the mask of his father - that he had no idea what that emotion might be.

Vega looked back at his son.

"No," he said. "He is not."

Rudi unfurled his fists, and sat back.

Maybe his father was right, and it would pass.

"You will have no further contact with Uli Kajosk," Hanno was saying. "And you are forbidden from contact with anyone about him."

"Yes, sir," Rudi said.

"This is for your own good, love," Vega said.

Or maybe not.

 

Uli showered as soon as he was allowed. 

He nagged the medics about a million times, so that even if he were still in heat, they were inclined to let him go: showers in the medical sector were private, and the water would help wash away the worst of his scent, anyway. After he complained loudly that the dried slick made him feel, exact quote, "disgustingly crumbly," the senior beta medic - a large, bearded Sergeant - plied him with a bottle of scent blocking soap and shoved him out the door. 

On the way there, he was tailed by a member of the Guard wearing a filtration mask and hip-holstered taser, which was as pointless as it was to be expected. Uli was too tired to attempt an escape, and besides, he seriously wanted to scrape his skin clean.

Upper showers let you pick a temperature, so Uli blasted water that was only a few degrees short of boiling. He had no reason to feel bad about this. Shower water was heated in the process of cooling down other systems, and there was a lot of shit in a spaceship that required cooling. It was cold water that would be a shame to waste on a human body, even one in need of cooling like his.

He let the water burn him, and it felt good. It wasn't like the burn of heat, which soiled his body, but a cleansing burn. He scrubbed every inch of himself with the scent blocking soap, and then inside himself, gingerly. He tried to ignore the finger shaped bruises on his hips, because the longer he ignored them, the less he had to think about the way they made him feel.

Out of the shower, Uli dried off and dressed in a spare pair of medical scrubs. This was better than the gown, but still made him look like a lost patient. He hated it, but that probably played into his hands. He was an omega now, and pretending to be weak was part of his arsenal. Uli looked into the mirror and tried to imagine himself in need of an alpha's protection. Wanting it, even.

He couldn't. He just looked like he needed a haircut.

He returned to the infirmary room and found Jepseth asleep in an empty bed. He thought about stealing her tablet and cracking the personal security code, but decided he'd been enough of an asshole already. Besides, Sein Abbot would be all over anything Uli searched or sent: Jepseth was as much of a prisoner here as he was, and Uli worried about what would happen to her once ll the omegas were healthy again.

Uli made rounds among the omegas in the infirmary room, memorizing their faces and talking to those who weren't still sick or completely comatose. Uli wasn't personable by any means, but seeing them felt important. They'd lost one already, and Jepseth seemed confident they'd lose at least another before it was all over. Jepseth was clearly devastated by this, but Uli secretly considered it a mercy that they might die, and a couple of the older omegas he spoke to expressed a similar belief. Better death, a fairly known quantity among the Lowmen, than whatever unknown fate faced Zekhish omegas.

They were surprised to see him there, and Uli was surprised by how many knew who he was. No, that wasn't it: he was Chief of the Bellerophon, it made sense that they recognized his name. But it went beyond recognition. The youngest among them - a skinny thirteen-year-old - had gazed up at him with amazement bordering on awe when he stopped by her bed.

"It's weird," Uli said, sitting beside Jepseth as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. A nightmare had woken her up.

"It's respect," she said. "You don't get that?"

"Uh huh. Seems doubtful."

Jepseth shook her head. "You're a Zek and a Lowman, and for years you made this ship run - and did so despite its governing bodies, shall we say."

Uli suppressed the urge to warn her about publicly insulting Premier Mede. It wasn't something he worried about normally, and Jepseth could take care of herself. 

"It's my job."

"Most of them have family among the Engineering and Mining grunts," she was coming around, and seemed to be righteously on a roll. Uli had a hard time believing what she meant. He'd only ever really cared whether his ship was working, whether he could feel its engines humming healthy and strong. He cared about personnel only insofar as they helped him get this done, and until now, actually thought most of them hated him. "You're the Boss, Uli. On the whole, they see you as hard but fair. You don't play favorites for political gain. You suck up so legendarily little, you returned to live with the Lowmen even though Premier Mede gifted you quarters on the Upper Deck."

"I had to," Uli said. "I was sick. You know that."

She yawned.

"They don't," she said.

Uli caught Jepseth's yawn. He looked at the clock. It was mid-second shift, and he still had several hours to burn until his scheduled meeting with Mede. He curled up on the hospital bed - clean and with clean sheets - and tried to get some sleep, but felt uncomfortable. He tossed and turned. The sight of the restraints, hanging lose, unnerved him - even though he understood now that the ywere there to stabilize patients in the event of sudden loss of gravity. Or to contain mindless omegas. He stood up and raced around the room until he thought he found a place where he could feel the crystal's hum, though probably he was deluding himself. If they had ever respected him, he thought, surely they wouldn't now. That was that.

He sat down and fell asleep.

 

"Uli," Jepseth said. "Wake up. It's time."

She nudged his shoulder.

Sleepily, Uli slapped her away, from under the blanket he heard her laugh, but in soft way that sounded almost like concealed crying. He peaked out. She wasn't crying, but she didn't look all there.

"It's okay," he said. "I'm up."

"Alright," she said.

It was a meaningless exchange meant to move them along, though neither wanted to move. Zeks were good at this sort of thing, or so they told themselves. The saying "you are not free to leave it" was so common among their people as to inspire satire. The original line - from their religious texts - implied never leaving a job unfinished, but it took on layers of irony when trapped in a place one literally couldn't leave.

At some point during his nap, the beta medics had shoved a pillow under his head, but it did very little to stop his spine from feeling it's been beaten to pieces when he stood up. He stretched, cracking his neck.

He glanced around the room, and there was nothing left to do but go. He had nothing to gather up and take with him. He didn't even know what he owned anymore, down to his own body.

Jepseth hugged him fiercely. 

He buried his face in her shoulder.

"Be safe," she said, then thought better of it. "Be smart. But not too smart."

He huffed a laugh. "I'll try."

Two members of the Guard were waiting for him outside the infirmary room. This struck Uli as excessive. He was unarmed and not even combat trained. Besides, he'd asked for this audience: they could have sent Sein Abbot to retrieve him, as before, and Uli would've walked dutifully behind him. Oh well, it'd give him something to do to stave off anxiety. Like any good Lowman, Uli loved heckling the police.

"You guys must be on vacation from electrocuting children," he said. "Or wait, is it punishment to be taken away from that? I know you enjoy it so much."

Uli himself had two fading shoulder scars from being tasered back in his more crime ridden days. One of the Guards shifted ominously - they really were a ridiculously sensitive bunch - but the other preempted any embarrassing incident by hastily pushing Uli foward.

"I trust you know the way," she said.

He did.

Instead of answering, he shrugged and started to walk.

Uli was less familiar with Upper, but he had a general understanding of the ship's layout that made navigation fairly easy for him. If he ever got lost, Lowman mechanics often scrawled messages on Upper engineering service doors indicating the nearness of said door to one major landmark or another. This was another thing that infuriated Upper society - they called it graffiti - and which Uli refused to punish his people over. A lost mechanic was a less productive mechanic. It only made sense.

In any case, the Guards only redirected him once, when he tried to enter a corridor that served as a major Upper thoroughfare. 

"No crowds," the female beta said. She clearly ranked her companion, though Guard wore no external identification.

"Alright," Uli said. He didn't entirely disagree. While the optics of being marched through an Upper market-corridor by two Guards entertained him, he was oddly self-conscious of the fact that he was barefoot. He missed his boots. He wondered where they were. "But I don't know any other way."

The Guard nodded and took point, guiding them from then on. Uli followed behind, feeling like he'd lost some sort of game. God, thi was going to be exhausting. He wasn't equipped to deal with the layers of charged bullshit that went into every interaction now that he was an omega. Omega Uppers trained their whole lives to handle this give and take. It was their biological imperative, apparently, to be the soothers and negotiators in such a cramped community.

Whereas Uli always liked a good fight.

The passageways she took them down were mostly deserted save bureaucratic types. Uli had a feeling they were in a sector that belonged to Intelligence, because it was freezing cold, no one seemed particularly too surprised to see him, and occasionally they passed a Viewer - one of Abbot's little minions - their faces half obscured by the wide framed video glasses through which they watched everything, Or, at least, the section of everything they were assigned. Only Abbot and Mede had access to it all.

Eventually she ushered him through a door that Uli discovered to be a back entrance to Mede's quarters. From there it was a short walk to the office. The carpet felt extraordinarily strange on his bare feet, almost like walking on water. He looked at the Guards, but they indicated for him to go through alone. He had more nerves now than he had going in for his finals at the Academy. At least then he knew he had everything he needed to succeed.

Now he wasn't even sure what succeeding would mean.

Save Zev, he thought. That was it, his singular goal.

He entered.

Mede was at his desk. He motioned for Uli to come in. The scent of him on everything made Uli want to leave. Abbot stood to one side of the room, roughly where Uli had been days earlier. He wore a blank expression. A third figure leaned against Mede's desk, an omega with large hazel eyes and red hair in a braid over one shoulder. Uli didn't watch the newscast much, but it would be impossible not to know the face of Vega Mede: and now he saw its similarities to Rudi. The same coloring, and the same litheness, which in Rudi came across as athleticism, but which Vega very aggressively projected as refinement.

" _This_ is the creature?" Vega said, as soon as the door slid closed. "Oh, thank heavens Virdin refrained from biting it."

"Fuck you too, kitten," Uli said, before he could think fast enough to shut himself up. Kitten was slang for an easy omega, and the sort of thing you heard a lot in Lower Deck barracks but probably not in Premier Mede's office. At least, not when his brother was around. 

Vega looked ready to slap Uli, but then relaxed.

"I want him fitted with a shock collar," he said, business-like. Matter of fact. He directed the comment toward Mede.

"If you believe it would be instructive," Mede said.

"Instructive, indeed. I can see that only the crudest methods are going to get through to this one." He crossed his arms and flicked his head back, looking down at Uli. "And if he is going to spend any time, at all - even vaguely - in my orbit, then he will have to learn."

Uli found all of this extremely fascinating but, more pressingly, was pissed at being spoken about as if he weren't there.

"Hey. Standing," he said. "Right in front you, bitch."

It surprised him that Mede merely watched, chin in hand, to see how his brother would handle being disrespected.

"Yes," Vega intoned. "Unfortunately."

"Feelings mutua-"

"Uli," Abbot said, gently. "You are performing very poorly. Reevaluate and proceed anew."

It was exactly the sort of thing a professor at the Academy might say to an otherwise competent cadet who was, for whatever reason, being a blundering idiot. Hanno raised an eyebrow. Vega, who knew nothing of Academy culture, furrowed his brow. Uli got the message: he was failing this exam. He had gone in with the goal of saving Zev, and so far all he'd done was start what amounted to a cat fight with the Premier's omega brother. If he wanted passing marks, he had to do something different.

He disengaged with Vega.

He had asked for an audience with Hanno Mede.

He took a deep breath.

"They're right, my Premier," he said, trying to sound appropriately obeisant. It was probably absurdly transparent. He had no idea how the fuck obeisant even sounded. "I'm not good at this. I don't understand politics. My life's work is machines, not people. Please have patience. Am I to understand, from your brother's words, that you have a plan for me? If so, your Excellency, I beg that you tell me in straightforward language."

The phrase 'I beg' came out painfully.

"So that I can follow it," he added, leaving it ambiguous as to whether he meant follow in the sense of of understand or action. 

He wanted to take a look at Abbot, to gauge how he had done, but sensed it would be a mistake to acknowledge the authority of anyone in the room besides Mede, and anyway, Abbot wasn't his ally. 

Vega's conversation with Mede implied a future for which Uli would require some kind of instruction. As much as Uli disliked that implication, it meant they wanted him alive. They had to want it, because otherwise there was absolutely no fucking reason to let him live. For the child, maybe, but if Uli was pregnant, why not just toss him down a brig until he gave birth? Nothing good could come from letting people know the child was Zekhish.

And then he realized there was no way people wouldn't know, that if gossip hadn't already made the rounds, then the ubiquitous surveillance footage would exist forever as damning evidence. That even if their generation never knew, subsequent generations would undoubtedly find out, and that was just as bad. 

It hit him like a fucking solar flare.

They were never going to let a baby live.

He was shocked, less for the hypothetical life - a baby would have been, at best, a barely tolerably parasite to him - and instead for the loss of his only leverage, without which he was now utterly powerless. He'd been so desperate for a bargaining chip that he'd completely blown over its obvious disadvantages. 

Mede was scrutinizing his expression, and Uli's hopelessness must have a wonderful impression.

"I have decided to be merciful," he said. "In light of your service."

Uli just blinked.

It took him a second to grasp that he was expected to respond.

"Thank you, my Premier," he said.

"You are to be bonded and settled among the society of the Upper Deck. Within the coming weeks, you will be presented with a list of potential mates, as prepared by my office. You will be expected to choose before your next heat, but you are being given a choice."

"What," Uli said, "I mean, excuse me, fucking, what?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Uli caught motion: Abbot clenching the bridge of his nose.

Vega said nothing, but clearly found it incredible that any omega could be so dense.

"It is hoped," Mede continued, as if reading from a script, "that your obvious talents, paired with the best of Society, will produce an extraordinary generation to the benefit of us all."

"And if I'm pregnant?" Uli said, because he couldn't take this rubbish. He already knew the answer but he wanted to hear them say it.

"It will be terminated," Vega answered.

"As is entirely within the laws of your people," Abbot added, in case Uli needed soothing on this front.

"Laws?" Mede said, curious, as if it had never occurred to him there could be laws outside his own.

Uli reeled on Abbot. He knew damn well what the texts said about abortion. 

"Only to save the life of the mother," he quoted, in Zekhish. Of course, even orthodox Zeks performed abortions for other reasons in these times - it was easier than dealing with the consequences of an illegal birth - but a non-Zek lecturing him on his own law was too fucking much.

" _Da_ , Ulek," Abbot said, holding his eyes significantly. " _Sikher._ "

Yes. Exactly.

Of course.

An abortion to save the life of the mother.

"Sein, what did he say?" Mede asked.

"Merely arguing with me on the finer points of Zekhish culture."

Vega scoffed. "Culture." 

"Well, Kajosk," Mede said, drawing Uli's attention back to him. "Do you follow?"

He had no leverage. Nothing with which to bargain. He couldn't understand why they would spare him, and suspected that, whatever the reason, he was still on thin ice.

But he had to try.

"I refuse to cooperate unless you guarantee the life of Zev Lemosk."

There was stunned silence, and then Hanno laughed.

"Come here, little one," Mede said.

Reluctantly, Uli obeyed, until only the desk stood between them.

Mede reached forward and gripped Uli by the chin. This unbalanced him, and he had to put his hands down on the desk for support.

"Alright," Mede said, almost cheerfully.

Uli thought he ought to feel relief, but he felt dread, as if he were wobbling on the edge of a sheer drop. It was too easy, and it would surely be even easier to fall.

Mede rubbed his thumb over Uli's lips, then let go and shoved his hand down Uli's shirt. He pulled up the stone pendant. Uli's heart leapt into his throat. 

"This is where they believe the Zekhish soul is kept, correct, Abbot? This bauble?"

To his credit, Abbot looked like agreeing would kill him. But instead of offering a more nuanced perspective, he swallowed his pride and said, "Yes."

Mede pulled so hard the chain snapped. It bit into the back of Uli's neck before it gave. He stared at Mede in wordless horror.

"It's a deal you want, is it?" Mede said. "Alright. And until you fulfill your end of the deal, then I think I'll keep this. As a reminder of who holds your life in his hands."

Uli lifted a knee onto the desk, grabbed the first thing he could find - a pen - and was trying to murder Hanno Mede with it when he heard Vega shout for the Guard.

The bite of a taser in his back was a familiar one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way, this was started entirely as project to teach myself to have fun writing again, so I am worldbuilding on the fly here my friends, and if anything I write contradicts previous chapters sorry about that. I've got to go through and streamline it at some point. 
> 
> Belinden Lyre may or may not be getting his own oneshot, depending on if writer's block fights me on this: he and Hanno have History.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter: space borsht, abbot is the most ominous literature professor you ever had, gratuitous shitty worldbuilding, too much interrupted dialogue 
> 
> also jeez i make a lot of typos. apologies for that. I write everything by hand and then type it up, and my fingers do a lot of dumb.
> 
> sorry about the months, i've been extremely depressed. as usual, all comments and kudos so kindly appreciated, you guys are the best.

He was locked in a room. It was a nice room, a comfortable prison cell. Small, but with its own amenities. The sort of apartment well-to-do Uppers might rent to throw away important but extraneous relatives. A waste of space, in Uli's opinion. A space like this, on the Lower Deck, would occupy a small legal family - mated pair with child - or four workers, sleeping in rotation: more, given enough desperation and patience.

Uli had spent a good deal of his late adolescence hot-racking barracks bunks, and beds in similar small apartments. He'd shared living space with other listless illegal children. In the Lower, youth gangs often pooled resources and bribed legal families out of their apartments: a great deal of threat was involved, too, of course, but payment formalized the theft in a way that minimized community retribution. Occasionally the Legals even got a got a good deal.

This had been the main reason Uli turned criminal as a teenager. Young, zekhish and hungry, he'd already looked criminal, and he needed a safe place to sleep between off jobs and studying for the Academy entrance exams. Better to join a good gang - one that protected its own - than go it alone and starve to death, or get swept up by overzealous Guard. The only other option was worse - turn bitch, Lowmen who informed for better food and privileges. 

Uli had been extremely lucky to find a gang leader who saw him as a potential opportunity. Everyone else had seen him as a potential bitch, a sniveling prude working to join the Uppers in their elite military Academy. No doubt they thought he'd be back down as a lieutenant of the Guard, pleased to screw everyone over, which must have been what Iaroslava thought, as well, except that she saw the advantages of keeping a future Guard close to heart.

Uli was used to sleeping in small rooms packed with people, making loud sleep-noises or murmuring gently to one another over mechanical drone. Even at the Academy he'd had a roommate. Some of his ill-health when he lived Upper must have been home sicknesses, he supposed: the quiet had bothered him then, too. And although he'd lived alone since moving back, he'd made sure his room was loud: by the engines with their constant humming, and near the engineering grunts' barracks - a well trafficked area, alive with the sound of changing shifts, shouting Lowmen and the hydraulic hiss of opening doors.

By contrast, the silence of this comfortable prison cell made his ears ring. 

Guard took him from Mede's office and tossed him into the room without so much as a _hello, goodbye_. He'd stumbled around a bit, splashed water on his face from the sink, and then curled up on the bed and turned to stone.

At first he slept, exhausted. He felt beaten. He woke up every once in a while, blearily got his bearings long enough to wonder at the point of being awake, and then forced himself back to sleep. Once he knocked on the walls, but no one knocked back. A fresh bottle of water and new vitamins appeared on the chair at his bedside at least twice, so he supposed it had been about a day, though he didn't know. Not knowing the exact time and date disoriented him as much as the disordered sleeping, which only deepened his depression, and made him want to sleep more, in general defiance of being alive. He was tired in a way he knew no sleep would help, but he didn't know what else to do.

Uli had never been a troubled sleeper. It was an obligation. He scheduled sleep in alongside his other duties and then accomplished it with the same regular self-assurance. Now, suddenly, he had no goals. No tasks to complete. Uli had spent his entire life picturing the consequences of discovery. Now that it had happened, he skipped false hope and settled fast into depression. It was calming, almost, to know he no longer needed to constantly watch his back. 

But he had always expected to be dead by this point, and didn't know what to do with being alive. It bothered him, mostly because he couldn't understand Mede's motives, and also he had no desire to become some cossetted Upper omega, as if he really could.

What was there to do about it now, though? Nothing. Everything was taken care of.

He was taken care of.

Eventually, he woke up, gasping, from a vaguely remembered dream about Rudi that left him wet. Or maybe it was Mede? There had been hands on his throat. He sat up in bed, heart pounding, breathing heavily. He thought couldn't hear the air recycling system, and he panicked. He covered his mouth and tried to calm himself. What was wrong? If it were the system, he'd be hearing alarms. So were they trying to kill him after all? 

And then he could hear them. Smooth, and quiet - quieter than systems on the Lower Deck, which frequently shrieked - but present, and definitely working. 

Hand still over his mouth, he looked at the vent that cycled in his air. Then he looked at the camera he knew would be watching.

He looked at the vitamins beside his bed, and he took them, washing them down with the bottle of water.

Uli pendant almost always slipped over his shoulder in his sleep. He reached around to readjust it before remembering. 

Alive and awake again, his again returned.

There was a change of clothes folded up in the corner of the room, so Uli washed with the sink and put them on. Most private residences weren't watched - it was considered a status symbol among the Uppers to be worthy of surveillance - but Uli had always been wary of stripping anywhere he might be recorded. Primarily because he didn't want to be discovered, but also because it felt like a violation. With his pendant in Mede's desk drawer, Uli lost all self-consciousness. What more could they see?

He still didn't have any fucking boots.

He finished dressing. Then, he waited, with his eye to the rudimentary control panel by the door. He'd already tried opening it and the results were to be expected: no response. The controls on his side of the door were disabled. 

But he'd tried anyway, because his trying was also to be expected, and because he would have felt stupid sitting around there if it'd been open all along. He didn't really know what he was: a prisoner? The locked door suggested as much. But from what he understood of Mede's sentencing, he was now a citizen of the Upper Deck. 

Prisoner, Upper omega. As if there were a difference. 

Eventually, he knew, someone would come. If only whoever had been bringing him vitamins and water.

They'd left him nothing to do. This was either an oversight or punishment. He couldn't tell. What did Upper omegas do with their spare time? Uli honestly didn't know. In the Lower, they worked like everyone else - but at the worst jobs, since they could never get anything official. 

Uli closed his eyes and tried to picture a layout of the ship, to figure out where exactly he might be. It was difficult. He'd been too dazed on the way over to pick up any good detail. When that grew too frustrating, he made up complicated math problems and solved them, meticulously, in his head. Somehow, his confinement was made even more boring by its ambiguity. If he at least knew it was meant to be punishment, he could occupy himself with self-righteous martyrdom.

He wondered how long it would take for him to begin reciting prayers for fun.

Uli sighed, sick of waiting. Had it been hours, or an hour? 

He waved at the camera. 

"Hey," he said. "At least bring me something to eat."

He was remembering formulas, some time later, when the door opened, and a service worker shuffled in, carrying a tray of food. 

The door closed shut behind him.

Uli eyed the worker, and then the door.

"Don't even think it," the man said, pulling down a small table latched to the wall. "Got Guard with me, zap you good, you try that shit with me."

Uli grinned.

He thought about insulting the worker - considered a number of unflattering names for Lowmen who relied on Guard - but he knew the worker was only doing his job. Besides, Uli was absurdly pleased to see someone so normal. Not a Premier, not a pilot or Guard, just a service worker. The man was old by Low standards, late forties or early fifties maybe, and he had a familiar worn out expression. He wore a long sleeved uniform buttoned tight at the wrist. Uli assumed he had tattoos on his arms. Service workers were usually Bitches, but sometimes an old criminal landed the job. It was like a retirement.

"Sure thing, alta potz," Uli said, settling on a gentle sort of zekhish insult that would be understood by any criminal: you old dick.

The worker shrugged, as if to say, yeah? We do what we have to.

"What time is it?" Uli asked.

"Lunch time," the worker said, which could mean three different times aboard the Bellerophon, depending upon one's shift, or it could be bullshit, depending upon whether the worker was fucking with him. The worker set down his tray and added, stubbornly, "But shut up. I'm not supposed to be talking to you."

Uli pulled the chair over. He really was hungry, and in this instance preferred food over poorly planned escape. Heat played havoc with an omega's digestion, slowing it in much the same way as a panic attack but more severe, and this would be Uli's first solid meal in a long while. It was a hot meal, too - beet soup - and he could smell it. It transfixed as much, if not more, than the scent of any alpha. 

He took a bite. Fucking Uppers and their decent fucking food. It was delicious. Uli tore into it like a starveling. 

The worker started to make his bed.

"You don't have to do that," Uli said.

The worker said nothing, apparently playing by the rules. Fine. Uli watched a second to be sure that the man was completely distracted before he pocketed a metal fork that had come with his meal. Then he swallowed the last few bites of soup, sealing the tray's lid back on himself. 

"Done?" the worker asked. He bent down and collected Uli's hospital clothes.

Uli nodded.

The worker knocked on the door. It was promptly opened from the outside by a Guard. Piling Uli's laundry onto the tray, the service worker bowed his head politely, and departed Uli's prison cell.

It couldn't have been an hour before he was back. 

The door opened. Uli was still seated at the small pull down table, bored and irritated.

"Fork please, sir," the worker said. He held out his hand, patronizing or pleading. Perhaps both.

"I don't know what you mean."

Uli made no move to return the fork. He hadn't yet bothered to remove it from his person and hide it somewhere else. He didn't know what he planned to do with it: as a tool it was pretty worthless. It might take an eye out with some luck as an improvised weapon, but a one-eyed Guard would still have one eye and Uli didn't care for those odds. 

"With respect, sir," the worker said, "You escape using fork from my tray? Won't be your ass put out the airlock."

Uli looked up at the worker, and saw fear.

He pulled the fork from his pocket and passed it over, without saying another word. The worker's whole body relaxed visibly, and he regarded Uli with an intense gratitude. It was painfully undeserved. Uli understood, but it still made his skin crawl. He didn't have to hand the fork over. The worker couldn't blame Uli for thinking about escape, and would've died before squealing to the Guard. 

Uli wasn't about to let a man die over a piece of scrap metal, but he'd heard horror stories of Uppers having service workers airlocked for less. In a way, he was an Upper now, whether he liked it or not, and the worker saw his acquiescence as an act of mercy.

He wanted to shout at the worker to have some dignity, but between the two of them, there wasn't much dignity to be found. 

"Thanks," the worker said.

"Don't mention it."

He knocked on the door again. The Guard who answered gave them both an utterly disgusted look.

"Wait," Uli said.

The worker waited. He glanced over his shoulder, expectant.

"Did you honestly think I could break out of here with nothing but a fucking fork?"

"Balos," the man said, using the Zekhish for boss in front of their Guard. The worker wasn't a Zek - Uli could tell - but criminal argot appropriated enough Zekhish to make any Lowman half fluent. "I've no doubt about it."

 

When the door opened again, it was Abbot. 

This couldn't have bee too long after 'lunch', since Uli hadn't had dinner yet, and he got the distinct impression he was going to be treated nice - for now - and that nice likely included three square meals a day. He was still hungry, and lonely, so when the door opened, he sat up and smiled, in anticipation of food and sparse, semi-friendly conversation. When he saw who it was, his face went blank, and he rolled onto his side, facing the wall. 

Abbot had a folder in his hand, filled with paper. Honest to God paper, with ink.

He also had, to Uli's mild horror, a scent. 

The service worker and the Guard had been betas, and fortunately scentless. But Abbot had a scent. And it wasn't unpleasant. 

Uli knew this was normal, and that for most alphas and omegas it was an identified about as mundane as a name. But for Uli, who had blocked that extension of his senses for almost his entire life, its reintroduction came as a shock. It seemed too personal, as if he were learning a secret, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Abbot Sein smelled calm, whatever that might mean. 

Worst of all, Uli knew he must have some sort of scent to Abbot, as well.

"It's seventeen hundred hours," Abbot said, "Give or take. I'll have clock brought in, or an old watch. Forgive me, I didn't think to include one. I see now how that might be uncomfortable for you."

Uli continued to stare at the wall, unblinking, until a seam in the metal squirmed, mirage-like. He was angry with Abbot, his rage so expansive and beyond boundaries that he couldn't put it to works. He wasn't entirely sure why. 

His hatred of Mede was murderous. Intense but easily defined. Mede had destroyed his future, violated his body, and deserved to die. As for Rudi - his feelings for Rudiger were numb, because he didn't want to think about them. Uli was content to throw him in with his uncle: Rudiger was nothing more than a Mede-in-progress, and it was unlikely he'd change orbit. So he, too, deserved to die. It was simple enough.

Abbot was something else. He hadn't touched Uli. He'd even helped a little, quietly coaching in that last meeting with Mede. Unlike most Uppers, he had an appreciation for the Zekhish people that bordered on understanding. He even spoke their language. But of course he did: it was his job to listen in.

Didn't he know everything?

"Dr. Lemosk is well," Abbot said. He set the folder down at the end of the bed, near Uli's feet, and dragged the chair over so that he could sit close. Clearly he expected a conservation. "Both of them, that is."

"Should I be thankful?" Uli asked. 

Abbot was quiet. 

Uli resisted the urge to turn around and look at his expression. He knew it would tell him nothing, or only infuriate him more with its arrogance. 

"I'm not asking you to be anything," Abbot said, at last.

Uli sat up violently.

"Hey, you're such an expert on Zekhish law," he said. "Tell me, then, what does the text say regarding an omega who's been raped?"

Abbot pursed his lips.

"I'm sorry what happened to you, Kajosk. I really am."

"Answer my question."

Abbot crossed legs, ankle over knee, and leaned back. Probably it'd been a long time since anyone expected him to prove his competence on a question of ancient literature. 

"Technically," he said, "Nothing."

Uli swung his feet to the floor, so that he and Abbot were now sitting directly adjacent one another. This wasn't the answer he expected. "Explain."

"The original texts actually make no mention of alphas and omegas - of secondary sex characteristics at all. It's only the commentary that begins to analyze them with a perspective toward there being six genders, and quite recent commentary, at that." He seemed entertained. "In the originals there are two sexes - male and female, and that's it. You really have never read them."

Uli swallowed a growl. "Don't insult me."

"I only assumed, since you are a scholar-"

Uli laughed.

"In non-Zek terms, perhaps," he said. "In Zek terms, I'm a technician. _Balgut_ aren't scholars, we're useful idiots."

Balgut were laborers, men who worked with their hands, or those concerned foremost with material things. The word wasn't interchangeable with 'criminal,' but it had connotations. Balgut were simply more susceptible to criminal ways, or so the belief went. 

It wasn't impermeable. At least one ancient commentator had been a bandit. To be considered worthy of studying the original texts had more to do with a difficult to pin down quality of character than it did one's profession, though engineering certainly cut into the time it would take to learn an ancient language. Whatever it was, Uli didn't have it. Not that he was prohibited from studying - just that no one expected him to, and it was tough to convince a teacher to take one on as a student, especially without the pedigree of being born into a scholar family, like the Lemosks. 

It made him wonder about Abbot.

Nevertheless, Uli knew enough. And he was clever enough to grasp at the implications of what Abbot was saying.

"You mean to tell me," Uli said, "that when the texts were written, there were no alphas or omegas."

"Curious, is it not?" Abbot said, now obviously enjoying himself. "That would be one interpretation." 

"Or?"

"Or they used the terms 'male' and 'female' more broadly to refer to reproductive ability, rather than physical characteristics. This is the most likely explanation, and the one commonly accepted by your religious authorities. Haven't you ever wondered why the same laws apply to Jepseth as to you?"

He hadn't, not especially, although it was one of the reasons non-Zeks considered his people barbaric. Everyone knew that beta women and omegas weren't treated well by the ancient texts. The outmoded character of laws pertaining to omegas certainly dampened Uli's enthusiasm for his own religion. But while a little oppression of omegas made sense to everybody, applying the same outlook to beta women struck non-Zeks as hopelessly uncivilized.

It was interesting, but none of it answered Uli's question - not the way he wanted - and he had a point to make. 

"Fine then. Assuming the latter interpretation." He folded his arms over his chest and leveled Abbot with a knowing stare. "What do the texts say should happen to an omega who's been raped?"

Abbot's small smile disappeared.

He uncrossed his legs and set the cane down between them. He leaned forward.

"Uli, we must talk."

"We are. Now answer me."

Abbot broke eye contact and stared down at his own hands, as if lost in thought. Uli followed his gaze and was amazed to note how oddly beautiful he found Abbot's hands: they were long and slender, as if made to do something very delicate and skilled. 

"Even the orthodox of your people have discarded this law, or talked circles around its practical application." Abbot looked back up at Uli, low. "We have serious matters to discuss, and you are being a brat."

If he weren't so mad, he'd almost find it funny that Abbot - the chronic show-off - was trying so hard to divert a conversation about his favorite topic. But Uli was furious. He answered through a jaw so tight it hurt.

"This is fucking serious to me."

Abbot drew in a deep breath, and let it out slow, so as not to sigh.

He relented.

"He who takes an unmated omega by force," he began, then interrupted his own recitation: "There really is no Zekhish word for rape." 

" _Fa jesk ota fa jeannah_ ," Uli said, "To lay with and degrade. It's descriptive enough. Go on."

"Must take the omega as his mate, thus assuming responsibility for his well-being. It is a law that must have made sense in the days when an omega's honor, shall we say, was his value, and a rape would have completely ruined his future."

Uli forced a vicious grin.

"I know that you are trying to make me seem the hypocrite," Abbot said, "But unlike those concerning abortion, this law is irrelevant, Uli. You have a future."

"Is that so?" Uli hissed.

"Yes," Abbot said, with such force it shook Uli a bit. Sein Abbot wasn't one to show deep emotion. He spoke with a modulated drone, amusement coming in tight-lipped smiles, and breaths exhaled slow to hide fierce irritation. He was the only person Uli knew who spoke Zekhish with no melody, hitting inflection as a computer might. To hear him snap came as a genuine surprise. 

"What do you want?" Uli asked, the edge gone out of his rage.

Abbot was slow to answer, as if flipping through slides in his head, trying to find the exact place to begin. 

"Much has happened. Much you're unaware of, but which concerns you."

Uli raised his eyebrows, but remained silent. He knew there was no sense rushing Abbot in this mode. 

"The situation is unstable in the Lower Deck," Abbot said.

Uli couldn't help himself. He snorted. 

Abbot, at least, tipped his head in acknowledgement of the understatement. "More so than usual. Jepseth may have mentioned it - her sons have been keeping her informed."

The causal reference to surveillance of Jepseth reminded Uli of who exactly Abbot was on this ship. He set it aside for the sake of intel, but it disgusted him. He grimaced. 

"What's happened?"

"Dr. Lemosk's arrest and the condition of the Zekhish omegas. Your removal from your post, Uli: these things have upset the population beyond their ability to bear, or so it would appear." He cleared his throat. "It is as yet unclear to me whether the violence was organic among the general population, or if one or two gang leaders is taking advantage of disaffection to settle scores."

"Violence?" Uli prompted.

"One Guard dead in the line of duty, and two Lower Deck civilians murdered by their own."

"Bitches," Uli said, sounding pleased.

"Informants," Abbot conceded. "Yes."

Uli felt like laughing, for the first time in a while, with something like genuine happiness. Abbot was probably right to suspect some gang leader's hand in fanning the flames, but that didn't mean the general populace disagreed with the idea. 

There was a porous divide between the Legal population of the Lower Deck and its criminal element. Legals were higher up in the official hierarchy, and saw themselves as better - more deserving - for their adherence to the law. But the criminals, through use of force and a thriving shadow economy, held the bulk of real power in the Lower Deck. 

Occasionally the two sides came into conflict. Any gang leader who took too much from the Legals without even ceremonial payment courted bloody retribution. Infamously, under Rudi's grandfather, a so-called 'war' broke out between the Legals and the criminals, as they struggled for dominance of the Lower Deck. Fought in a series of small massacres over several years, the bloodshed ultimately served as justification for the creation of the Guard.

Iaroslava believed that the Barracks War, as it was called, had been manufactured by Mede Sr to cull the population of the Lower Deck and solidify Upper control over them all. The animosity weakened them, she said. It was a rant she'd subjected Uli to many times, since he'd joined her gang. They were all, ultimately, Lowmen.

So what if the dead Guard was a criminal vendetta? 

At least someone was fucking fighting back. 

"Whether or not the murders were criminal in motive, recent events have made them political," Abbot said, confirming what Uli knew to be true from his own gut reaction to the news. "Even among those who would normally be unsympathetic to such methods."

"That's a lovely way of saying you have a riot on your hands."

Abbot closed his eyes.

"Potentially so."

Bits and pieces began falling into place.

"That's why we're still alive, Zev and me."

Abbot nodded.

"Or at least Zev," Uli said, still unable to believe that other people cared about him as Chief Enginer. He was easy enough to replace, and business could continue on the ship as usual.

"You, too," Abbot said, gently. "I received a reliable report today, indicating that low-level members of the Mining Corps are considering a strike in your name." 

At that, Uli really had to laugh.

Abbot opened his eyes again, in that slow, sleepy way he had.

He watched Uli.

"Sorry," Uli said. "Just picturing Benya's face." His second-in-command, and captain of the Mining Corps.

He ran his fingers through his hair, brought himself under control. He was aware his mirth seemed borderline manic, because it was. 

"I take it you understand now?" Abbot said.

"Yes," his shoulders were still shaking minutely, as if it were all an irresistible joke. "So, let me guess. It goes like this. I get marked by some asshole, and pop out a couple of cute Upper pups - that part might take a while, by the way. Then at some point, you take a well timed photo of me in Upper society, all smiles. Maybe Vega is also there, looking friendly. You distribute it Lower. No way for them to know I don't enjoy this. By Lowman standards, it's practically a promotion. A Bitch move, but a promotion nonetheless. They'll understand," he finished, "They'll hate me but it'll make sense. Am I about right?"

Abbot only watched him, motionless, as if he were the camera, recording Uli's life to dissect at a later date.

"I'll never smile again, you bastard," Uli said, losing it. "I swear to God I'll never smile again."

"Mede is weak," Abbot said, and that brought Uli down like a bucket of ice water to the face. "Weaker now more than ever. And this system unsustainable: change is inevitable."

Uli's whole body turned to the camera in the corner of the room.

"Nevermind it," Abbot said. He smelled so calm.

"Why are you telling me this," Uli asked, tearing his eyes away.

Abbot straightened his back, drew himself up.

"I would like to be your mate, Uli," he said. "I intend to ask Mede's permission, but of course, I am asking yours first."

Uli covered his face with his hands. He rubbed at the circles under his eyes.

"Why?"

"The union would be purely political, if that puts your mind at ease."

He hated Abbot's way of answering him, ignoring him, and changing the subject all at once. 

"We'll have to fuck at least once, Sein," Uli said. 

Abbot flinched. At what, exactly, Uli wasn't sure.

"It would be on your own terms," he said, "As much as possible. I will ask nothing more of you than what you want to give."

Uli shook his head. He'd lost the ability to set terms days ago, if, as an omega, he'd ever had it at all. They'd have to settle the bond, of course. It could be done without sex, maybe, but if Uli was following what Abbot meant by political, then they'd want to be convincing about it. Besides, Uli suspected Mede would want to see him in full, proper heat for whoever was chosen to be his mate. 

He remembered how he'd removed his boots for Rudi, obediantly.

Once in heat, there was no real possibility of setting terms. His only option, at this point, was to choose someone he thought he could trust, assuming Mede actually let him have the choice. 

Did he trust Abbot?

Absolutely not.

Did he have any better choice?

From under a hand on his brow, Uli appraised the man. He was fifteen years older than Uli, give or take, with silver hair cropped short, tidy. Abbot was immaculately tidy, from his clothes - tailored - to his obsessively clean fingernails. It came as no shock to Uli that a man like Abbot would want more control over the Bellerophon than he already had. And he was already a powerful man - Mede's right hand.

"This inevitable change," Uli said, cautiously. "What kind of change, exactly?"

"If you would have me," Abbot said, "I guarantee everything about our partnership would be entirely equal. And that everything it produced would be shared equally. I can't predict the future, but I can promise that much."

Abbot might not be able to predict the future, but Uli imagined his plan had more details than that: he wasn't the type to talk insurrection without a plan. But he was taking a risk confiding this much in Uli and Uli supposed he was expected to take a risk in return. Besides, Abbot probably was his best option for a life worth living. Even if the man was lying through his teeth, Uli could find ways to take advantage of the situation to aid the Lower Deck. 

As if Abbot weren't among those benefitting from Lowmen's misery - from his own misery. 

Uli kicked Abbot's bad foot.

"What makes you think Mede will say yes," he said. "I was denied reproductive rights for being too short." As if it were possible to annoy him away, Uli slipped into the crass attitude he assumed when he wanted to goad Abbot. "I doubt he'll agree to a bond between two people he sees as a cripple and a runt."

Abbot clicked his tongue.

"You are a perfectly average height for an omega," he said. "And I believe Mede sees me as slightly more than a _cripple_. I've served him well and loyally for nearly ten years, and never asked anything in return. I should hope he'll take that into account."

"Don't bet too much on it," Uli said. Mede was too stupid to be predicted. 

"Will you at least consider my proposal?"

Uli bit the inside of his lip.

"Yes," he said.

"Thank you," Abbot said.

Uli shrugged.

Abbot stood. He held out his hand.

Uli shook.

 

The folder Abbot brought with him contained engineering diagrams of the Cork 2 starfighter. Uli complained that he couldn't possibly fix the plane without getting into its guys, but he spread the papers out over the floor, anyway. It was something to do. Much of it he recognized, vaguely, having written it himself years ago. Here and there were modifications. Nothing he read revealed how they cut the crystal, which is what Uli wanted to know, and which he'd previously thought impossible. 

He fucking hoped Benya's miners walked out on him, because if Sulamit crystal was being cut and Uli didn't know about it, it meant someone in the Mining Corps had been going over his head.

The folder also contained reports by the test pilot. Uli chewed the skin around his thumbnail and read Rudi's technical analyses, which - wonder upon wonders - were not completely garbage. The writing was largely professional, and dry, though an occasionally word or phrase revealed hints of idiot personality. Uli rolled his eyes when Rudi described a particular speed as 'killer.' 

He was still sitting on the floor, reading Rudi's reports, when the door opened again.

The same service worker entered, and set down a tray.

He looked at Uli biting his cuticles. 

"I know for fact you're not that hungry," he said.

Uli, not really listening, grunted. But he moved his finger away from his mouth and held the paper with both hands.

The worker went over to Uli's bed and began smoothing out creases in the blankets. He fluffed the pillow, dramatically.

"You don't have to do that," Uli repeated, but he didn't look up.

"Eat," the worker said. "I'm bored waiting for you."

Uli got up and went to the table. He ate. There were no vitamins with the meal this time, and it felt strange not to take his suppressants. Abbot had added a watch to the tray, an antique, and Uli strapped it to his wrist. No suppressants but a time piece instead, a literal count down. He read while he ate, and the old service worker sat down on his bed, creating more creases where he'd just smoothed them out.

When Uli was done, the service worker reached over his shoulder to collect the tray. Uli found his closeness uncomfortable, and was about to back away when the worker murmured something clearly meant for only him to hear. 

"The bed," he said. And: "Sergeant Ford sends her compliments."

Iaroslava.

Uli sat still, pretending to read, until the service worker knocked on the door and left.

He went over to the bed, and lifted the pillow. 

There was a small toolbox tucked beneath.

His back to the camera, Uli opened the toolbox up. It had everything he'd need.

He knew it would be a close call between the time Security saw what he was up to - immediately, he assumed - and the time it would take for him to escape. But he was confident he could pull it off. He had to be.

Uli turned around, toolbox in hand, and blew a kiss to the camera.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mmmmmmmmm i'm sorry this is shit

The day after their awkward family dinner, Rudi received a transfer - as much as it could be called that. 

He was being sent to serve as his uncle's aide.

Mede was moving him closer. It looked like a promotion. His father implied as much. Rudi was thick but not that thick. He knew what babysitting looked like.

Still, it was instructive. Even he had to admit. Rudi had never been a real part of the Belle's administrative process before, and - once he was finished sulking - he had the presence of mind to be spooked by how much he didn't understand.

Things in life came easy to Rudi. There'd never been any question of his spot at the Academy, of course and petty nepotism aside, he was a genuinely talented pilot. Most people liked him, or so he assumed. He was aware he could be charming, if boyishly so. He’d coasted by so much on natural confidence, that it came as a shock to discover he might seriously be out of his depth.

Some things he didn't understand because they were difficult, if not beyond him: food distribution, for example. Sustainable agriculture in general. Or how a thriving black market in the Lower Deck affected the economy of the entire ship. He tried to tell himself he'd get it eventually. Then there were the things he didn't understand because he wasn't allowed to know. Mede let him sit in on most meetings, but from time to time he was pointedly dismissed: like when Anna Leonina - head of Guard on the Lower Deck - burst into Mede's office without preamble, looking righteously pissed.

Outside the office, Rudi offered Leonina's subordinate a drink. "Rough day?"

Leonina's subordinate tugged down the half-mask that covered his mouth, and accepted a small glass from Rudi - another one of Mede's antiques. Lower Deck Guard were more heavily armored than their counterparts in the Upper, and wore masks to protect their identity. Here it didn't matter. He tossed back the drink.

"Rough _week_ ," the man said, in a tone to suggest that was the end of it.

So there was trouble in the Lower Deck, then. Not that this surprised Rudi. There was always trouble in the Lower Deck. That's what everyone said, or what Rudi's father led them all to believe. Lowmen were criminals, who lived by their own ruthless morality, regardless of how it damaged the rest of the ship. Even their law abiding citizens were suspect: Zev and Jepseth Lemosk had been model Legals, living meticulously by the book. 

Maybe that ought to have been a sign.

Lowmen were useful because they did the dirty work. Otherwise they were a drain. 

He supposed. Rudi had never even been to the Lower Deck. And he didn't know any Lowmen, personally - except perhaps Uli, who was certainly useful.

Whatever trouble there was in the Lower Deck, it involved Uli. Rudi guessed as much, since Mede waved him out the room whenever the subject came up. 

Rudi was staring blurry-eyed at a report on soil nutrients when Abbot arrived. Guard let him in after a perfunctory knock. 

He had an energy about him that was unusual, an urgentness. He entered as if prepared to speak immediately, when he spotted Rudi and shut down. It was like watching a screen go idle. Rudi rose, anticipating his dismissal. He wasn’t in the mood for Abbot’s intrigues and needed and needed a walk, anyway.

“Sein,” Mede said, “What is it?”

Abbot’s reluctance and its reasons were obvious. Rudi stood to leave, but Mede stopped him. “You’ve not been dismissed, Captain. Abbot, I believe I asked you a question.”

Abbot cleared his throat, “It’s Kajosk, sir.”

Mede looked up, at him.

Rudi was aware of both men eyeing his expression. Abbot subtly, Mede much less so. He allowed himself to look mildly curious, if a little lost. It seemed to work. 

Dad ought to be proud, Rudi thought. He’d never been a great actor.

“Go on,” Mede said. 

“He is as yet unaccounted for.”

Abbot was clenching and unclenching the hand on his cane.

Mede’s response was deceptively serene, “Meaning?”

“We - I,” it was at once an admission of individual responsibility and a small reminder by Abbot of his importance, “I have been unable to ascertain his whereabouts. Surveillance loses him exiting elevator two onto the Lower Deck, and all searches by Leonina’s Guard have turned up nothing.”

Mede leaned back in his chair and looked up, as if stargazing.

“They’re hiding him,” he mused.

“Naturally,” Abbot said.

“From me,” Mede said.

Abbot was silent.

“It’s a fucking spaceship,” Rudi interrupted. “How far can he go?”

They both looked at him, again. Differently this time: surprised, less suspicious, though Abbot narrowed his eyes. He seemed angry, which wasn’t like him. 

Mede laughed. “What’s the plan, then?”

Rudi had a moment of panic when he assumed Mede wanted his opinion. 

But Abbot answered first, sparing him that humilition. “I think we should release Zev Lemosk back to the Lower Deck, under strict surveillance. It’s my belief Kajosk will try to contact him, if possible. I also want to spread word of a reward for his capture. Nothing official. That would only offend them. But have Guard contact their established informants and imply. After that, it should spread on its own.”

Mede picked up a pen - the one Uli had tried to stab him with - and tapped it twice against the desktop. He nodded. 

“Do it,” he said, and then added, with a hint of threat, “But if it fails, Abbot? What then?”

Rudi was reminded of a time he’d broken one of the antiques in Mede’s quarters as a boy - an old watch. He’d apologized profusely, but all that earned was a disgusted grimace from his uncle. It was only when - fearfully - he promised to fix it, that Mede turned and asked, “But if you can’t?”

He hadn’t cried. He’d left for his room and stared at the broken artifact with uncomprehending apprehension - the question, if you fail? what then? hanging over his head - unable to move until a service worker, a Lowman, gently took the watch from his hands and returned it, days later, ticking healthily. 

Abbot responded without apparent fear or hesitation, as if this were an old recitation. “We do what your father did. Restrict rations. Hunger will affect the Legals first, and they’ll put pressure on the Criminals to give Uli up.” He shrugged, once. “I’m confident we can locate him before that will be strictly necessary. As the Pilot Captain pointed out, this is a confined space.”

“Good,” Mede said, placated.

Abbot took a deep breath.

“I’ve another matter to discuss with you, sir.” He half turned and glanced at Rudi from the corner of his eye. This was for Mede’s benefit, Rudi was sure. He’d never known Abbot to telegraph so noticeably. “Of a personal nature.”

Mede seemed curious and amused, as if the idea that Abbot had a personal life never truly occurred to him. He dismissed Rudi with a short wave. “Take an hour, Rude. And try to be ready with that summary when you return.”

Rudi saluted simply, and made for the door. He felt anxious and unsure about what he’d heard, but relieved to finally be away from his uncle, if only for an hour. He wanted to ignore Abbot completely on his way out, but as he passed the man, a faint scent caught his attention, and he stopped. He stared. Abbot looked back. Suddenly the anger, the narrowed eyes, were gone. He looked as he always did - as if he were sleepwalking. 

“Do you have something to say, Captain?”

Rudi’s skin prickled as if, all over, he’d gone numb. 

He grinned a little - enough to show teeth - and left.

Outside the office, he fumbled with his pocket until he pulled out the tablet, and typed up a hasty message to Jepseth - his only line to Uli. His thumb hovered over send. 

Whatever he wrote, Abbot would undoubtedly read it - and Rudi was supposed to be bored with this by now. He’d even made a point of being seen around with some other Upper society omegas, draping an impertinent arm over the shoulder of one and threading his fingers through her hair. Once again the carefree playboy. 

Talk about bored.

Rudi wandered the corridors, restless. He felt like running, but the idea of treadmills bothered him. This was more than a need to burn off energy, to run in one place. He wanted to go somewhere no one knew him, where no one was watching. It had seemed hilarious to him, thrilling even - in a way Rudi never knew existed outside the cockpit of a fighter - that day on the elevator when Uli asked who he was, as if he’d never heard of Rudi in his life. 

Rudi would’ve wanted him for that alone, even without the heat. 

Uli looked at him as if he hardly mattered. 

Rudi turned into the cafeteria and thoughtlessly ordered a cup of tea. He reread the message he’d written, erased and it wrote it again, until the service worker who poured his drink coughed politely. “Right,” Rudi said, taking the cup. He caught the service worker’s eyes. She blinked and turned away, busied herself with work that wasn’t there. She had to be Legal to work on the Upper Deck. Her job was pointless, really - Rudi was perfectly capable of pouring hot water in a cup on his own - but it meant her rations would be better than most. 

Unless Mede restricted them. 

Rudi sat down and pulled up the report he was meant to be reading. Soil nutrients.

He bounced his foot, impatient. 

What did Abbot want from his uncle? There was very little the man couldn’t already access. Almost nothing. Every file was an open book for Abbot. If he cared to, he could pry through the life of any person on this ship: video feed, personal emails. He could see what they ate for breakfast, probably even calculate how much oxygen they breathed. Mede had the same access, but it interested him only insofar as it was useful. He mostly left it up to Abbot to sort that out. 

It made an odd, lonely existence for Abbot. Most people avoided him if they could, Rudi included. He who knew so much without asking, and it was suffocating to be in the same room with that.

Rudi returned to the unsent message.

_Where is he?_

Abbot would read it, and know what Rudi wanted. 

He wanted to hunt Uli down, if only to face the judgment in those dark eyes.

Rudi considered the consequences. Mede might revoke his inheritance, pass on the seat of power to someone else. His dad would hate him forever. 

But all that seemed highly unlikely. For Mede, the Bellerophon was a family affair, and Rudi was family. Anyway, if a little thing like Uli forced Mede to disown his picturesque heir, wouldn’t that signal to the whole ship his uncle feared the omega? It’d be ridiculous.

Except Mede actually might be afraid.

Rudi took a sip of his tea. It’d gone lukewarm. He checked the time - ten minutes left until Mede expected him back: he’d spent the hour staring at his screen. People were filing into the cafeteria for first shift’s third meal, and he knew they were looking at him, little curious glances. He gathered up his tablet and teacup, and stood to leave before anyone bothered him with their company. 

Too late. A hand on his shoulder shoved him back down, or tried to. It didn’t quite have the strength. 

“Hello, junior,” Belinden Lyre said. “Sit.”

He remained standing, “I don’t have the time.”

“Roughly 1700,” Lyre settled on the bench next to him. He was unwrapping a freeze dried nutrition bar, like the type pilots took out on long missions. It wasn’t a food that could be found in this cafeteria, but Rudi knew from recent reading that the high calorie bars were basically the only thing eaten by Mining crew.

“That’s not what I meant,” Rudi said. “I mean, Mede expects me back in ten minutes.”

Lyre chewed. He covered his mouth with his hand, to be polite. “You always do what daddy wants?”

From any other omega, it was the sort of comment that demanded a show of dominance in response. Rudi’s hand tightened around the half empty cup. 

He shook his head, incredulous.

Lyre looked insane, or like he was seriously ill. He was impossibly thin, and there were deep sleepless bruises beneath his eyes. He’d pulled his hair up in a bun, but much of it had fallen loose, hanging haphazard around a long, weary face. Rudi couldn’t imagine what his uncle saw in the man. 

The thought of taking him by the back of the neck or any other dramatic display seemed ridiculous. Rudi shook his head.

“Right,” he said, “I’m going.”

He made it three steps.

“I can get you to Uli,” Lyre said, loud enough anyone around them might’ve heard.

He was pulling apart the nutrition bar, as if bored. Rudi turned back. 

For whatever reason, he was pissed, he brought his hand down on the table loud enough to turn heads. Tea spilled from the cup. He leaned forward to answer Lyre in low, private tones, a hint of growl in his throat, “And what makes you think I want that?”

Rudi was sick of everyone on the ship being involved in his business, but that wasn’t what irritated him. That much he’d come to expect.

Lyre shrugged, unimpressed. “It’s up to you, pup,” he said. “I’m only offering.”

What Rudi never expected was uncertainty, which curled uncomfortably in his chest. Even when he wasn’t sure what to do in the cockpit of an untested fighter - even when his life was on the line - Rudi made split second decisions without a thought. He wasn’t a coward, and it angered him that he kept second guessing himself now. 

“What do you get out of this,” he asked.

Lyre laughed. Rudi honestly couldn’t tell if it was forced.

“I don’t really know yet,” he said, squinting.

Lyre reached up and touched the side of Rudi’s face, with the tips of his fingers. The thick frames of his glasses magnified his eyes a little goofily, and when Rudi looked directly into them, he got the sense that Lyre was staring past him, into the distance and at someone else. There was deep disgust and hatred in his glare.

Rudi pulled away.

He left Lyre there without another word. When he glanced back over his shoulder at the entrance to the cafeteria, he saw Lyre still sitting, nutrition bar in pieces on the table in front of him. A service worker was wiping up the mess Rudi made. She froze, cautiously, at something Lyre said, and he tilted his head, imperious. She swept the bits of bar up and shoved them into her pocket, quick, like a greedy child.

She didn’t look hungry to Rudi. If anything, Lyre - the Upper - seemed starved by comparison.

Rudi never knew that his grandfather had starved them in the past, if what Abbot said was true. Uli would give himself up if Mede restricted rations. He didn’t know that much about Uli, not really - but he knew that much. Uli wouldn’t sit around in hiding, eating other people’s food, while everyone around him starved: not when the solution was so simple. And if Mede didn’t kill him this time, Uli would be bonded off to some comfortable, ambitionless lackey. And Rudi would be forced to watch from a distance as it shaped him into something else. 

Even if he didn’t give himself up - what other outcome could there be? 

_Where is he?_ Rudi typed, and sent.

Jepseth responded almost immediately: _oh wow they only just now told you_

 _let me see him_ , he demanded.

It took a minute.

 _I don’t know where he is_ and then _anyway hot shot just who's fucking side do you think I'm on??_

 

“You can give me the summary and go,” Mede said, as soon as Rudi was through the door.

Rudi scoffed. “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.”

Mede hadn’t moved from his desk in the hour. He leaned forward on his elbows and gave Rudi an exasperated look. It was unguarded, and familial. Anyone else would’ve been shouted out.

“You do know you work for me now, right?”

“I’ve always worked for you,” Rudi said, grinning, as if this were a regular exchange between uncle and nephew, and Rudi didn’t feel somehow like a traitor and somehow used. “I was just a better pilot.”

“So was I,” Mede said, fond. He got up and stretched his back, groaning. There was another antique clock on the desk and Mede picked it up, glancing at the face. It probably didn’t tell the right time.

“Do you remember the watch?” Rudi asked. “The one I broke?”

“You fixed it,” Mede said, after a moment’s recollection. He sounded wistful, almost proud.

He put the clock back down.

“Listen Virdin,” Mede said. “I know what you’re going through. I do. And I promise this is for your own good.”

The repetition of that promise made Rudi want to take a step back. He remained still, wary, quietly worrying at a canine with the tip of his tongue. 

It was entirely possible his uncle did understand. He thought of wraithlike Belinden Lyre and his pained, hateful eyes. His uncle had loved Lyre - it was an old open secret, one of those not easily kept in their tiny world - but Lure refused to settle, to do what was best. It warped him.

“Abbot asked for permission to bond with Kajosk,” Mede said. “Apparently Uli agreed.”

Rudi bit the inside of his lip, and tasted copper. It was to keep from laughing as much as anything else. He knew what he had to do.

“What do you think?” Mede asked.

“He’s already escaped Abbot once.”

“Yes,” Mede said, smiling faintly. “They’d keep each other very busy. But what do you think?”

“It’s a good idea,” Rudi said. He was gripping the tablet so hard his hand hurt. 

It was a lie, and Mede knew it, but it was the lie he wanted to hear. He came around his desk and laid a hand, fatherly, on the side of Rudi’s face; the same place Lyre had touched him earlier.

“Good,” he said. “So do I.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, uncle,” Rudi said.

Mede patted his cheek twice and nodded.

“Go have fun,” he said, and he meant it.

 

Rudi found Lyre in the Pilot’s Barracks, where he was popping open the wall panels that serviced as cupboards and looting through them. He pulled out an entire box of tea, and - curiously, as if unsure what it was or why he wanted it - a single can of preserved fruit.

Lyre packed it all into a bag with deliberate care, as if he didn’t trust his hands, or feared the items wouldn’t stay where he left them when he looked away. 

There were two young pilots in the room, watching Lyre as if it were entertainment.

“Get out,” Rudi growled, as he caught his breath. The two pilots left, casting glances between themselves. It wouldn’t take long for word to circulate that Rudiger was talking privately with Belinden Lyre.

“So?” Lyre said.

“Take me to him,” he said.

Lyre slung the bag over his shoulder and turned around. “You don’t even know him, you bastard.”

“Whatever,” Rudi said, wiping his mouth. He’d run to the cafeteria first, before checking the barracks, and was covered in a light sheen of sweat. His hand was shaking just a bit. “It doesn’t matter. I’m on his side.”


End file.
